Victoria Azarenka was all smiles when she landed the winning stroke to bag the Key Biscayne Open title with a final score of 6-1, 6-4. She faced a tough opponent on former no.1 Maria Sharapova who fought hard to come back from 0-4 with a couple of winners. However, it was clear that Sharapova was not in her element having started the season after a bout of flu. The last minute onslaught on Azarenka was not enough for her to grab the title.
Azarenka, who got past Kim Clijsters and Vera Zvonareva on her way to the final, kept her cool, fending off Sharapova’s shots like a true champion and hung tight.
“Yes, it was more a question of mental strength than anything,” she said after the match. “She was going for her winners, and I just had to hang in there.”
Sharapova admits that it was too late for her to try to pick the pace up at so close to the end of the match, saying,
“Obviously I wish I’d picked it up earlier. Against a player like her you have to have that level from the beginning or else she’s going to go with it and only get better. Yeah, she did many things better than I did today. She was the aggressive one.”
The win moves Azarenka up to no. 6 in the rankings.