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Azarenka’s balance and recovery this evening were first-rate. She constantly struck the ball with just enough depth and direction to relentlessly befuddle Sabalenka. Then again, Sabalenka heartily contributed to her demise. If power appears to come naturally to Sabalenka, discipline with footwork is definitely an upside. So often in this match, she would arrive at the ball ill-equipped to strike it effectively. With Sabalenka’s options limited, she could do little but flail, making the kind of poor shot selection decisions that bring a smile to an opponent’s face. Random attempts at down-the-line winners and service returns flagged long were just two major gifts Sabalenka repeatedly donated.
The start of the second set offered new hope for Sabalenka, when she took a love-30 lead on Azarenka’s serve and earned a pair of ads to break serve. These two opportunities revealed further improvement areas – one a complete misfiring of overheads and a netted forehand volley, the second an awkward attempt at a forehand approach shot. Reprieved yet again, Azarenka held and broke. A year ago, she’d also been up a set and 2-0, only to lose her serve and watch the match slip through her fingertips. Tonight, serving at 6-1, 3-1, Azarenka was broken. For the second year in a row, was the past going to give way to the future?
Here Sabalenka made yet another bewildering choice. Serving at 2-3, 30-all, she was in a fine place to at last spar on equal terms with Azarenka and hold significant momentum. Wouldn’t now be the time to serve wisely and demonstrate faith in her arsenal? Sorry, not happening. Instead, Sabalenka attempted a second serve ace that went wide to hand Azarenka a break point. Call that 30-40 point, Vintage Vika: a deep crosscourt backhand return that opened up the court for a down-the-line backhand winner to take a 4-2 lead. Sabalenka had pried the window open, but slammed it on her fingers. Fittingly, with Azarenka serving at 5-3, 40-15, Sabalenka sprayed a forehand wide, her 27th unforced error of the match, compared to a stingy nine for Azarenka.
Asked to assess what’s helped her resurgence this year, Azarenka spoke with a new level of wisdom, gained to some degree by becoming a mother, to another by maturity and pandemic era exile from competition. “It’s really funny to me when people do that,” she said, “when they try to ask the one thing that you're like, I'm going to tell you and you will be, Oh, that's the thing that changed everything, you know, this one — but it really isn't. It's really just a lot — I'm not going to lie. I have changed the way I do practice, for example. I took the fear of failing away from myself, which has been really powerful for me to progress.”
Though Azarenka had learned a few things from losing to Sabalenka a year ago, perhaps the bigger keys to tonight’s triumph were the lessons she’d learned from herself.