Four takeaways from Stephens' win over Azarenka in Miami semifinals

Sloane Stephens got one step closer to her first Premier Mandatory title on Thursday afternoon, rallying from a set down to beat Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals of the Miami Open, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.

Here are four takeaways from the American’s victory against the former world No. 1.

The match completely flipped early in the second set. For the first hour of the match it was all Azarenka—she jumped out to a 3-0 lead, and after Stephens fought back to even the score to 3-3, the Belarusian won another five games in a row to build a seemingly insurmountable 6-3, 2-0 lead.

That’s when the momentum shifted again, though. Stephens reeled off 10 games in a row—and 12 of the last 13 games of the match—to eventually come away with a two-hour, nine-minute victory.

“I just knew I had to keep fighting,” Stephens said in her on-court interview. “In the first set I was down and came back, and I battled really well—I knew if I tried to do that again in the second set I could.

“You just have to keep fighting. You never know what can happen.”

Match point from Stephens' win over Azarenka in the Miami Open semifinal:

Stephens cut down on her unforced errors in a big way after the first set. One of the biggest factors for the mid-match turnaround was unforced errors. In the first set, both players had a negative winners-to-unforced errors differential, with Azarenka at minus-2 (8 to 10) and Stephens at minus-4 (9 to 13).

But while Stephens tidied up her numbers from there—she had an even differential in the second and third sets combined (15 to 15)—Azarenka’s game went awry with a -21 differential (9 to 30).

One last forehand long from Azarenka handed Stephens a spot in her first Miami Open final.

Stephens has now won 17 of her last 19 matches on US soil. The runs dates back to last August, and it includes Cincinnati (where she reached the semifinals before falling to Simona Halep), the US Open (where she won the first Grand Slam title of her career), Indian Wells (where she reached the third round before falling to Daria Kasatkina) and now Miami (where she’s now through to the final).

This is by far her best career performance at a Premier Mandatory event, too. Before this, her best results at this level were two quarterfinals, at Indian Wells in 2014 and here in Miami in 2015.

Both Stephens and Azarenka have a lot to be happy about this fortnight. Not only will Stephens finally break the Top 10 for the first time—she assured herself of that breakthrough just by reaching the semifinals—but now she’s just one win away from the second-biggest title of her young career.

And despite the loss today, Azarenka achieved a lot in Miami. She scored her first Top 10 win in almost two years (Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinals) and guaranteed herself a return to the Top 100, reminding everyone along the way of the kind of tennis that once took her to No. 1 in the world.

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