Azarenka Victoria wins Australian Open 2012 for 1st Grand Slam

After a shaky first two games, Victoria Azarenka overpowered Russian world #4 Maria Sharapova to win the Australian Open 2012 women's singles title, and her first career grand slam title. Azarenka will now become the new #1-ranked player, the 21st player to reach that milestone and the first player, male or female, from Belarus to reach the top ranking. She earned AUS$2.3 million dollars for her victory pushing her career earnings total beyond $11 million.

In a highly anticipated contest, the match was expected to go the distance as both players were in top form heading in to the final. After Azarenka dropped the first two games to go down 0-2, she won twelve of the next thirteen games to win the title in 82 minutes. It was a very impressive victory for the Belorussian player who had a history of disappointing losses in Melbourne, and who was not previously known for her mental strength. She lost a couple of matches to Serena Williams in previous years despite a huge lead. In both years, Williams had gone on to win the title.

Azarenka had a 71% success in her first serves as compared to Sharapova. She had a good 14 winners to 12 unforced errors, while it was clearly the high unforced errors from Sharapova which kept the match from being competitive. The Russian had the same 14 winners as Azarenka, but committed more than twice as many errors with 30. Azarenka also controlled the net winning 7 of 8 net approaches. She broke Sharapova 5 times, and was only broken once. She took advantage of Sharapova's weak second serve to win 14 of 17 points. Sharapova's return, which was very effective against previous opponents did not do much damage against Azarenka. Azarenka won 68% of her first serve points, and also a majority of her second serve points at 53%. Azarenka controlled most of the rallies that went more than three shots, with majority of the points ending in a Sharapova error.

It was another Australian Open final disappointment for Sharapova. The runaway score where she won three games is the same as the number of games she won when she lost to Serena Williams in 2007. Sharapova should still be pleased with her performance here and in her progress in the past 24 months. She also reached the final at Wimbledon before losing to Petra Kvitova. She will be ranked at #3 when the new rankings will be released on January 30 behind Azarenka and Kvitova.

Azarenka remains unbeaten this year and is enjoying a 12-match winning streak. She also won the warm-up tournament at Sydney and is expected to be a force to reckon with in the next few months as she has previously shown that she is a very good hard court player. Despite playing in her first grand slam final and was the far less experienced player against the three time Grand Slam champion, Azarenka went into the match with full confidence as she has beaten Sharapova soundly in their previous 2 hard court matches. It the end, there was not much Sharapova could do to derail the inevitable. Victoria Azarenka has fulfilled her potential, won her first grand slam title, and is now the top-ranked women's tennis player.

Related Links:

Victoria Azarenka Australian Open Finals Interview
Maria Sharapova Australian Open Finals Interview