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*Vika Azarenka Cheering Thread* - Vikalume 4.

327K views 5K replies 133 participants last post by  Pova 
#1 ·
Go Vika!!:bounce:
 
#4,139 ·
Oh god, the one class I have tomorrow is at 10am, which is the time the match starts, and lasts for ninety minutes so I'll basically miss the whole thing :help:. I'm going to be very unfocused in class :tape:.
 
#4,140 ·
The head-to-head is 6-1 for Vika, including a straight sets win on clay in Rome this year.
 
#4,143 ·
She played quite well today once she got going, especially once she found her return game. Once she found her timing she was pretty much breaking at will rather than having to fight through deuce games.

It kind of looks like the other players have sat down together and analysed her serve motion and patterns and are able to read it really easily. I'd rather she sent down body serves and changes of pace, especially against a player who she can dominate in the majority of the rallies (like Errani or Jankovic). Errani had most success reading her "hard" first serve and redirecting the pace.
 
#4,146 ·
Vika was 51 winners, 24 unforced errors but I can't remember Heerrani.

That is a great ratio, a lot of which is because she was ending soooo many points at the net with winners because Heerrani hits so many short balls but besides several rusty shots in the first set and some absolutely disastrous smashes she did a pretty good job of going for her shots and making it work.
 
#4,145 ·
I only started watching at 5-6* but I was quite impressed. In that game and the early stages of the tiebreak she was missing a lot, but somehow trusted herself to keep going for it and came through the tight set. In the second set Heerrani was obviously injured, but she ended up playing more aggressively and there were several breaks, yet Vika maintained her focus and was great at running down Heerrani's shots. Not perfect, but I thought the second was a very nice set. The *3-2 game especially was key, as she saved several break points, did quite a bit of running, and hit four aces :eek:. A win is a win and two sets is always nice with this format.
 
#4,148 ·
And I agree with the people saying that the surface is too slow. I think if we had a Radwanska Errani match it could easily last 4 h+ :lol:
 
#4,150 ·
Couple quotes:

Beyond The Baseline ‏@SI_BTBaseline
Victoria Azarenka says the courts are rough and a bit slow. Expected to be rusty after break. #wtachamps

Ben Rothenberg ‏@BenRothenberg
Asked whether women could/should play best-of-5, Azarenka said the better solution is for men to just play best-of-3. Smart lady. #wtachamps
 
#4,152 ·
Ugh, I'm just thinking about the schedule and I realized Vika will definitely have a rest day Thursday and then have to play Friday :eek:. Her group has two matches tomorrow, which means it will again Friday and the only player left for her to play is NaNa, but if those two play on Thursday then Empress would've only had one match in three days, which means Thursday will see Empress-NaNa and then Vika-NaNa and Empress-Heerrani on Friday. Annoying that two years in a row Reehanna has gotten a break after the three days of round robin while Vika, while getting a better schedule than last year, still is on the shorter end.
 
#4,154 ·
WTA ‏@WTA
Reminder tomorrow's #WTAChamps OOP: Li Na v @SaraErrani, @Vika7 Azarenka vs @Jelena_Jankovic, @SerenaWilliams vs @ARadwanska #tennis
 
#4,155 ·
Her W/U ratio was great, but she can play a better match with 14/24 or something like that. It all depends on the type of match and opponent i think.

Great with a win. One more tomorrow please.

One thing i don't understand is why she is so slow between points. Perhaps im wrong, but i think she almost rushed when she played at her best 2012. But that somehow seemed to work for the tempo of her game.

I guess they (Vika and her team) have a plan with it, that i don't understand (yet).
 
#4,156 ·
I didn't get too see all the match had too go 2 doctor but she made nice comeback in first set & seem too stream roll in the second set
 
#4,157 ·
Ah, when. Saw 1-3 and then 2-5, thought damn this is anther shocker. But impressed she came back with straight sets. But boy, 1.5 hours for ne set is tiring. She just needs to cut down errors, first set was 25 errors and total match only 27. It doesn't matter on the differential if the errors count is high.
 
#4,163 ·
.

UE counts will usually scale with winner counts, as an indication of how aggressive someone is playing. You'll pretty much never see high (nonserve) winner counts with low UEs.

Having said that UE counts are entirely arbitrary anyway and you can only compare between matches at the same tournament as different tournaments will count them differently.

The other thing is that these stats are skewed depending on the pattern of the match. Yesterday Errani was hitting a lot of dropshots and Vika was coming to net a lot anyway. Most of these points are bound to end in winners either way. As opposed to say a vika - sharapova match where both players are trying to pin each other behind the baseline and a lot of point will end in "errors" from going for slightly too much depth or after a long baseline grind.

So basically w/ue counts are useless out of context.

I think Vika played a pretty balanced style yesterday. By the second set she was really dealing to those weak serves too.
 
#4,160 ·
If she could just get the serve (the double faults) under control, she'd be doing so much better.
 
#4,161 ·
I wish she would finally solve this issue, even if it takes a year. The serve issues have ruined Elena Dementieva's career and it'll severely hamper Vika's if this is not resolved. Serve doesn't even have to be good but it has to be adequate. 10+ double faults, will hurt you every time you go up against someone your strength or better. It has to be solved or she'll go down gradually from here.
 
#4,162 ·
The strange thing about the serve is that it's detracted. It was never great and was always prone to some double faults, but even earlier this year she usually held, while now it almost seems better for her to be returning. Today half the games she lost were on serve :unsure:. Needs to be addressed during the off season!
 
#4,167 ·
Hard to express my feelings right now...the first set was very close with only a few points making the difference. In the second set she was strangely emotional but didn't have the fire nor energy to turn it around. Jelena held serve without any problems at all. The surface surely wasn't doing Vika any favors in this match-up but that can't be an excuse.

So maybe that's that for Vika's YEC...
 
#4,168 ·
There is definitely something going on behind the scenes that we don´t know about, be it a more serious injury, coaching, relationship. She didn´t even fight properly. Some of the DFs were just totally unmotivated stuff. The only player she could expect to beat here was Errani and only because Errani is equally out of form.
 
#4,179 ·
There is definitely something going on behind the scenes that we don´t know about, be it a more serious injury, coaching, relationship. She didn´t even fight properly. Some of the DFs were just totally unmotivated stuff. The only player she could expect to beat here was Errani and only because Errani is equally out of form.
I totally disagree, I think Sara played very well, I thought it was her best tennis that she's ever played (I can't be sure though because I don't watch her matches).
 
#4,170 ·
Her return game was unfathomably bad today. Its like she turned into julia goerges overnight, when was the last time she went a set without even having break point? Even in her matches against serena?

Its the cornerstone of her game, as long as its working she will beat almost any player but its like she was seeing the ball really late or something.

Edit: her serve wasnt that bad today considering her low % first serves. You don't hit double faults due to being "unmotivated".
 
#4,172 ·
If you have a low 1st serve percentage to begin with and then play your 2nd serve like a 1st serve, you are asking for double faults. You take a high risk, because you cannot (physically) or want not (mentally) engage in longer rallies.
 
#4,171 ·
i wouldn't exclude the possibility that she's simply physically and mentally drained at the end of the season. Traveling from Switzerland to Australia to Istanbul surely wasn't gonna help either way.
 
#4,173 ·
From 50 matches? She hasn´t played this little in a season since she was 15/16. Last year she played over 80 matches and was only drained after Linz.

I guarantee you Sumyk was not happy about that trip and combined with his body language I think there might be something brewing.
 
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