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Azarenka is thinner, and after switching recently from Wilson to Yonex, she’s playing with a blacked-out racquet. But the familiar mannerisms were in place on Wednesday: the quick, pounding way she walks, a little bit up on her toes; the fidgeting with her necklace while she sat during changeovers; the bounding footwork she uses to get around the baseline; the frown she made at her team when she missed a shot. Even after she hit an ace late in the match, Azarenka raised her arms in frustration, as if to say, “Why didn’t I do that before?”
During her time away, she rejiggered her serve, and the motion looks like it has been smoothed out a little. Sometimes it worked well on Wednesday, but when she missed, she tended to miss big. Overall, though, Azarenka played well. She absorbed Vesnina’s pace, and after a few shaky early forehands she found her range on that side.
She also reminded fans of what makes her special as a player, what raises her above a cookie-cutter baseliner. Early in the match, after pushing Vesnina wide with a ground stroke, Azarenka moved toward the net, but as she ran forward she was forced to reach up for a high backhand volley. That can be an awkward shot, but Azarenka made it look easy, coolly directing the ball crosscourt, against the momentum of her body, for a winner. Her victory on Wednesday was her eighth in eight meetings with Vesnina, a fact that even Vika was at a loss to explain.
“I don’t think she’s necessarily the most comfortable player for me,” Azarenka said. “...But I feel like I always play a good match against her for some reason.”
Will the new Azarenka—Vika the mother—be noticeably different from the old one as a player and a personality? She seemed lower-key on Wednesday. On court, despite the obligatory frowns and shoulder slumps after her mistakes, she was mostly calm. Afterward, rather than taking her time before meeting the press, the way she has in the past, she came in quickly, still sweating, with her hair pinned up. Instead of the main media room, where she has always held court, Azarenka was in the much smaller Interview Room II—“It’s crowded in here,” she said as she threaded her way to her chair. Two days ago, she complained about the amount of time she had to spend at the club waiting for her first-round match to be scheduled; that’s time she doesn’t have anymore. On Wednesday there was a no-nonsense, let’s-keep-it-moving quality to her answers in her presser.
She says traveling with a baby is a “little stressful to me,” and that she’ll do “everything in my power” to get the Slams and the WTA to make life easier for mothers on tour—she’s sure to get help from Serena Williams on that front next year. When Azarenka was asked how motherhood has impacted her, her answer was heartfelt.
