It was anything but an exciting match, but 8th seed and 2009 champion Victoria Azarenka probably doesn't care. Azarenka faced a completely flat Kim Clijsters in the Sony Ericsson Open quarterfinals tonight, and pulled off a 6-3, 6-3 victory without having to break much of a sweat. Not that Azarenka didn't have her own problems: She served really well, but she would frequently make unforced errors just when she had set up those good serves to produce winners. Still, the 2nd seed gave the impression that she wanted to be put out of her misery, and Azarenka obliged.
Clijsters has been having some problems with her shoulder ever since the Australian Open, and I don't know whether the injury factored into tonight's meltdown. "I just didn't feel good out there," she said after the match. We haves seen this type of thing before; when Clijsters goes off, she goes way off. But, after getting what looked like an impossible victory against Ana Ivanovic, it did seem odd that the defending champion would have so much difficulty in the quarterfinals.
Vera Zvonareva, the tournament's 3rd seed, was another story. She defeated 9th seed Agnieszka Radwanska 7-5, 63, and will play Azarenka in the semifinals. Meanwhile, on the other end of the draw, Andrea Petkovic will play Maria Sharapova, assuming that Sharapova's ankle is stable enough for her to play.
In doubles, 3rd seeds Liezel Huber and Nadia Petrova defeated wild cards Sloane Stephens and Yanina Wickmayer in straight sets to advance to the semifinals.
Apparently after her loss to Vika, Kim had some not too nice words to say, not about Azarenka but I guess about her motivation etc. I recall when she just returned to the Tour, a journalist mentioned that she was not as nice and approachable as in her first career. I guess her true personality had to come through ... finally.
ReplyDeleteClijsters has always blunt about things like this. She said she returned to the tour because she watched the current players and thought it wouldn't take that much to beat them. The media, to a great extent, built an image of her that is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteShe was down after the Miami loss (she was down during the match) and she was candid about it. I have some issues with Clijsters (mainly about her support of that completely sexist Barbie and Barbie baby), but I think this is a case of: The media built an image (a Barbie image, at that), and now they're upset because the real person doesn't "live up" to it.
She's down. I suppose big Clijsters fans are upset and expect something different from her, but she has always had these "off" times. I didn't have any problem with what she said.