Victoria Azarenka won her quarterfinal match against the surprise of the tournament, World No. 97, Magdalena Rybarikova. Azarenka won 6-0 6-0 in an hour and 9 minutes.
Azarenka started strong with an early break. We could see that Rybarikova had a taped ankle and her movement wasn’t a hundred percent. Azarenka was really good on her service games and won them easy, while Rybarikova was fighting hard on every point on her serve. There were two incredibly important and dramatic games, at 0-2 and 0-4, both on Rybarikova’s service game. These games had many wasted game point opportunities and deuces. The second game lasted up to 10 minutes. Azarenka ended the first set with a clean game and the great stat of 89% of points won after first serve.
During the changeover, Rybarikova took a medical time-out and received treatment on her right thigh. Rybarikova lost her serve once again to start the set, but played Azarenka tough on her serve, getting to the deuce for the first time on her opponent’s serve. Rybarikova got broken again, but then had 40-0 on Azarenka’s serve, 4 break points in that game overall. Rybarikova didn’t succeed even in her 6th try at holding her serve and paid the price, when Azarenka served the match out, after an hour and 9 minutes. Victoria Azarenka will face Karolina Pliskova in a match for the final.
