Immediately after she won the match by forcing an error to end just the kind of aggressive, spiraling, warp-speed rally that had carried her so far this year, Victoria Azarenka uttered a fierce if brief shriek of disbelief and allowed her customarily stony visage to melt into a portrait made of equal parts joy and relief.
Just two matches removed from the end of the year, and with Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams—the former a force she has to deal with tomorrow; the latter potentially on Sunday—breathing down her neck, Azarenka clinched the year-end WTA No. 1 ranking and a spot in the Istanbul semifinals with a brave performance against China’s Li Na, winning 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Azarenka thereby achieved something that tennis icons Sharapova, Venus Williams, and Kim Clijsters had never added to their CVs: She guaranteed that she will become just the 11th player in the history of the computer rankings to become year-end No. 1. No matter what happens the rest of the way in Istanbul, that honor is secured.
It wasn’t low-hanging fruit either, because Azarenka was not only playing to vouchsafe that ranking, she was also obliged to win in order to remain in contention for the prestigious WTA Championships title, having been deadlocked with Li at 1-1 going into this final round-robin match.
Li made it clear from the start—by breaking serve—that she wasn’t about to allow Azarenka to waltz into the knockout semifinal round. When Li fought off a break point to hold the second game of the set, and Azarenka had delivered three double faults by the time she held for 2-3, it looked like Azarenka would have her hands full.
But you can always count on Li, and not necessarily in a good way. Her game can be explosive, and at her best, Li’s fluid, economical, compact style of tennis is unrivaled. Trouble is, Li can get a little down on herself, or perhaps just loses the plot. In any event, the upshot is that no matter how well (or badly) she’s playing, with Li, it’s never over until it’s over. She can find numerous ways to, as the bard said, “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”
That was the narrative today. Li clung to a slim, one-break lead until she served to go up 5-3. She went down break point in that game, but wiped it out with a service winner. But from deuce, Li made two errors to allow Azarenka to level at 4-all.
Li broke right back and served for the set. She reached 30-all with a service winner, but was unable to close the deal. She failed to get her first serve in for either of the next two points, which Azarenka won on, respectively, a backhand error and a double fault. Five-all.
The women traded holds to force the tiebreaker, in which Li continued to play erratically. She gave up a mini-break with an unforced backhand error to fall behind 1-2, pulled even with a cross-court forehand return winner, but promptly served up a double fault on the next point. Li had one more chance later in the tiebreaker, when Azarenka goofed on a cross-court backhand to bring the score to 4-5—on serve. But a pair of puzzling errors by Li ended the tiebreaker.
Li was broken to start the second set, but Azarenka played an uncharacteristically weak game and gave back the break with a forehand error. Given a chance to start afresh, Li wasted it. She hit another costly double fault (she had seven on the day, too many of them at critical moments) to allow Azarenka to get back to 30-all, then lost the next two points as well to fall behind, 1-2.
Azarenka followed with a big hold and broke again, aided by double faults Nos. six and seven for Li. The world No. 1 was rolling, and continued to do so until she served for the match with a two-break cushion at 5-2.
The next game was hall-of-shame-worthy, which made it kind of fun to watch. Azarenka swung from the heels and absolutely powdered the ball on three straight occasions, none of them anywhere near the right side of the lines. She completed the self-sabotage with a double fault (her fifth and final one). The best you could say for the display was that she got it out of her system.
Although, Azarenka fell behind 0-30 in the next game—meaning that Li was two swings away from pulling even on serve. But Azarenka pulled it together before things got too western (and after a healthy dose of court bashing with her racquet), finding the court often enough for Li to make a string of four errors to end it.
Azarenka will have all of, oh, 18 or so hours to enjoy her capture of the year-end No. 1 ranking. Sharapova and Williams still wait in the wings, neither of them likely to be particularly impressed by Azarenka’s new status.