Sharapova Finals Disable Crush At Slam

Tennis Betting Lines

Both semifinal matches lasted two hours, 12 minutes.

 

Azarenka is 3-3 in her career against Sharapova, with two of those wins coming in finals.

 

The winner of Saturday's title match will become the new world No. 1, supplanting Clijsters' quarterfinal victim, Caroline Wozniacki. Sharapova has not held the top ranking since the week of June 8, 2007.

 

The 21-year-old Kvitova missed wildly on an overhead smash to lose her second service game, the first of three breaks for Sharapova in the opening set.

 

"In the third set, I felt she always had the advantage because I was always down on my serve," said Sharapova, who piled up five double faults in the third set and 10 in the match. "I just told myself "You just gotta go for it, don't let her finish off the points like she likes to."'

 

The former world No. 1 Sharapova's last major title came at the 2008 Aussie Open. The Russian was the Aussie runner-up in 2007.

 

If this was, in fact, the Belgian's final visit to the season's first major, she went down fighting. Azarenka broke Clijsters' second service game of the match, then fought off four break chances in the proceeding game.

 

Clijsters, the 11th seed, quickly evened the match before falling behind 4-1 in the third. She held serve and trailed 40-0 in the next game before earning another break to get back on serve.

 

"I felt like my hand is about 200 kilograms and my body is about 1,000 and everything is shaking, but that feeling when you finally win is such a relief. My God I cannot believe it's over. I just want to cry," Azarenka said as she fought off tears, then put her face in a towel.

 

In the quarterfinals, Clijsters fought off four match points against last year's Aussie runner-up to her, Li Na.

 

A repeat performance was not meant to be, as Clijsters was wide on match point to end any chance at becoming the eighth woman to repeat as Aussie champion.

 

Azarenka and Sharapova have split six career matchups, with two of Azarenka's wins coming in finals. Saturday will mark their first-ever Grand Slam meeting.

 

Azarenka is 9-8 in her career finals, including 1-0 this year.

comments

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•    Ferrer makes the quarter-finals of a Slam for the 6th time in his career, the 3rd time at the #ausopen #impressive

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•    #Djokovic is unsure that #Murray’s new coach, 8 time Grand Slam champion Ivan Lendl, can make an immediate difference in his student’s play!

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•    Does playing grand slam tennis 2 count as working out? Because I'm sweating..

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•    Shrieking Azarenka complains about crowd noise? Wow! #AO

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•    Men's Tennis is now boring....You can predict the last 4 in each grand slam. 1) Djokovic 2) Nadal 3) Federer 4) Murray

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•    Wah Final Australia Open tunggal putri Victoria Azarenka vs Maria Sharapova baru besok ya, mau nonton nih *-*

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•    I swear Cher Lloyd is trying to make a career out of rhyming 2 words that don't rhyme.

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•    exciting parin naman ang finals ngaun,kc d nmn tambakan ang game xcpt sa game1, la lng tlga finishing kick ang powerade

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•    On her bam bam...just drop anodda tune and now she want deh grand slam

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•    & im sure ill get cursed out later about this set up Nea just trapped me in.

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