Serena Williams praised an amazing Victoria Azarenka after the American won 7-5 6-3 in a fantastic second round match.
The contest didn’t disappoint as these two former world number ones produced a sensational match in the evening session on Stadium One.
Eventually after 2 hours and 7 minutes the 20 time grand slam champion edged into the third round with a straight sets win.
After the match Serena praised the fellow mother as the Belarusian looks to use this as a platform to build her season on.
In her post-match interview Serena gave all the praise to Azarenka, “I truly love Vika. She is a fellow mom, a former number one. Just like me. An amazing person.”
Even though it was a match that many people will remember for a while, the American said that she couldn’t enjoy it too much, “You can’t really enjoy it, because then you’ll lose focus,” Serena told wtatennis.com.
“You’ve got to kind of stay in the moment, you know. And it’s important to — like, sometimes you realize, ‘Oh, my God, this is going to be a classic.’ But you can’t let your mind go there, because you wouldn’t want to watch it in the future,”
As for Azarenka, she was pleased with her own level after a rough last six months as she hasn’t been able to rise to her 2012 heights after becoming a mother.
But in her press conference the Belarusian admitted that Serena makes her best tennis, “Serena pushes me to play my best tennis,” Azarenka explained.
“You know, she really won. She deserved to win. She played better on those important moments. I felt that every game was ad, deuce, ad, deuce. It was all about who was going to take that chance, and she took them a little better today.”
All tennis fans will now be hoping Azarenka can build on this and become a regular feature on the world’s top 20 as she heads to the Miami Open.
As for Serena she will now play another former world number one and grand slam champion in Garbine Muguruza who has had an inconsistent last 12 months.
