\n
MELBOURNE, 24 Jan: On the court at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night, Victoria Azarenka \u2014 the athlete \u2014 displayed the same confident brand of take-the-ball-early, hard-hitting tennis that carried her to two Australian Open titles and the No. 1 ranking a decade ago.
\nThat was responsible, in part, for the way she beat No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula 6-4, 6-1 to return to the semifinals at Melbourne Park for the first time since those triumphs in 2012 and 2013.
\nAfter the match, Victoria Azarenka \u2014 the person \u2014 opened up about how, away from the court in recent months, she managed to learn a new mindset by, in her words, \u201cTrying to be neutral, not to go negative; accepting the anxiety that I have; accepting the fear that I have.\u201d
\nAnd that, too, she explained, allowed her to deal with a fear of failure and play once again to the very best of her considerable abilities, which she certainly did against Pegula, who hadn\u2019t dropped a set in the tournament and ceded only 18 games through four matches until Tuesday.
\nThe two \u2014 her professional and personal lives \u2014 \u201care definitely connected,\u201d Azarenka said.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think that one goes without the other. I feel like a tennis court \u2014 probably for everybody, but for me, especially \u2014 triggers a lot of those fears, a lot of anxiety,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like an open canvas. When everything comes there at a high-pressure moment, high-stress moment, weird emotions come on the court. Sometimes, like, \u2018What … are you thinking about on the court?\u2019\u201d
\nA key turning point, one that helped her realize she needed to confront what was bothering her, came when she broke a few rackets after a loss at a tournament in October.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you recognize it right away. I think it builds up until you hit kind of a pretty bad spot where nothing kind of makes sense. You feel kind of lost,\u201d Azarenka said. \u201cI was at the point where I couldn\u2019t find anything that I feel good about myself. Not like even one sentence.\u201d
\nThe No. 24-seeded Azarenka\u2019s semifinal opponent will be No. 22 Elena Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion, who defeated 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-4.
\nRybakina \u2014 who was born in Moscow but has represented Kazakhstan since 2018 because it offered to fund her tennis career \u2014 hit 11 aces to take her tournament-leading total to 35.
\nIn men\u2019s action, Karen Khachanov reached his first semifinal at Melbourne Park \u2014 and made his second consecutive trip to the final four at a Grand Slam tournament, following his run at the U.S. Open last September \u2014 when 22-year-old American Sebastian Korda stopped playing in the third set because of an injured right wrist while trailing 7-6 (5), 6-3, 3-0.
\nKhachanov will face No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas, a 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-4 winner over Jiri Lehecka, for a berth in the men\u2019s final. Tsitsipas, a finalist at the 2021 French Open, got to the semifinals in Melbourne for the fourth time by saving all eight break points he faced.
\nA three-time runner-up at the U.S. Open, most recently in 2020, Azarenka has always played most effectively on hard courts, and that showed again on this evening. She repeatedly got the better of lengthy exchanges of forehands and backhands; Pegula made eight of the match\u2019s first 10 unforced errors.
\nAfter some misses, Pegula would sigh, roll her eyes, slump her shoulders. She often looked into the stands at her coach, Davis Witt, to say something, including one exclamation about the ball speed: \u201cIt\u2019s so … slow!\u201d
\n\u201cJust made it tough for me to feel like I could really pressure her,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cFelt like she was pressuring me constantly.\u201d
\nPegula, a 28-year-old from New York, was playing in the quarterfinals in Melbourne for the third year in a row but fell to 0-5 for her career at that stage in Grand Slam tournaments, with each loss in straight sets. Her parents own the NFL\u2019s Buffalo Bills, and Pegula wore a patch on her skirt during matches with the No. 3, the jersey number of player Damar Hamlin, who collapsed on the field during a game on Jan. 2.
\nHer exit Tuesday leaves No. 5 Aryna Sabalenka as the lone top-20 woman still in the bracket. On Wednesday, Sabalenka will play unseeded Donna Vekic in the quarterfinals, while No. 30 Karolina Pliskova faces unseeded Magda Linette.
\nNow 33 and a mother \u2014 she walked into the stadium wearing a jersey from Paris Saint-Germain, the favorite soccer team of her son, Leo \u2014 Azarenka, who is from Belarus, delivered big shot after big shot, raced to a 3-0 lead in 12 minutes, and never really let Pegula, a good friend, into the match.
\n\u201cLeo doesn\u2019t really care so much that I\u2019m playing here. … Obviously, he is watching some matches, but he definitely wants his mom to be home,\u201d Azarenka said. \u201cSo a few more days here, and I\u2019ll be back.\u201d
\nMight make the trip with a trophy in tow if she keeps playing like this. (AP)<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, 24 Jan: On the court at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night, Victoria Azarenka \u2014 the athlete \u2014 displayed the same confident brand of take-the-ball-early, hard-hitting tennis that carried her to two Australian Open titles and the No. 1 ranking a decade ago. That was responsible, in part, for the way she beat No. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-209488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}