Much has changed for Victoria Azarenka in the decade since she won the second of her two Australian Open titles. Injuries, a bitter battle for custody of her son and upheaval in her personal life have all taken a toll. What hasn’t changed is the potent baseline game and boundless tenacity that once carried her to No 1 world.
In a spellbinding performance against Jessica Pegula, the nominal title favourite at Melbourne Park, Azarenka offered a reminder of her enduring quality, dismissing the American third seed 6-4, 6-1 in an hour and 37 minutes. The contest was as full of long, punishing exchanges as its duration suggests, the surprise being that it was almost invariably Azarenka who came out on top of them.
Taking the ball early and directing it with power, length and accuracy, the Belarusian played Pegula at her own game. She leavened the mix with occasional slices and looped balls to disrupt the American’s rhythm, and returned with a venom and consistency that earned her 13 opportunities to break, five of which she converted. Combined with some sharp play in the forecourt, it was an irresistible formula.
“I knew I had to play fast, I had to not give her opportunity to step in, I had to mix it up,” said Azarenka. “There’s nobody better than Jess, she just doesn’t miss. I felt like I did some interesting slices. You know what, I was like, ‘You’re doing the right thing. Even if it looks like crap, it’s fine, it’s the right way to do it.’”
Pegula arrived at Melbourne Park on a high after a series of outstanding performances at the United Cup, not least a straight-sets demolition of Iga Swiatek, who has regularly tormented her in the latter stages of big events. When the Polish world No 1 suffered a fourth-round defeat to Elena Rybakina, joining second seed Ons Jabeur on the sidelines, Pegula became the de facto favourite. Yet despite making seamless progress to the last eight, dispatching four opponents in straight sets including former French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, the 28-year-old never really embraced that status.
When it was pointed out to Pegula that she was the highest seed remaining, she simply replied that she was the only quarter-finalist in the top half not to have won a slam. It was not exactly fighting talk, and facing a mirror image of herself will hardly have allayed her sense of unease.
“She was just executing it, I feel, pretty well tonight – hitting the ball deep, taking it early, changing the direction on the ball, doing things that I usually like to do to people,” said Pegula.
“She always returns well, and when she doesn’t have too many ups and downs on her serve, that can really make her dangerous. She was scrambling well tonight, getting a lot of really good depth on her shots. Just made it tough for me to feel like I could really pressure her. I felt like she was pressuring me constantly, the whole time.”
For Azarenka, the journey back to this point has been long. She was a finalist at the US Open in 2020, but it is 10 years since she last reached the semi-finals in Melbourne, and her memories of that occasion are not good. Although she completed a straight-sets win over Sloane Stephens, her victory was eclipsed by accusations of gamesmanship after she left the court for a medical timeout with Stephens about to serve to stay in the match. In the aftermath, Azarenka was accused of feigning injury.
Novak Djokovic has been the subject of similar speculation in recent days, with doubts in some quarters about the severity of a hamstring injury that has prompted him to take medical timeouts in two of his four matches. Djokovic has expressed his frustration to reporters from his native Serbia, and Azarenka said she could relate to his feelings.
“It was one of the worst things that I’ve ever gone through in my professional career, the way I was treated after that moment, the way I had to explain myself until 10.30 at night because people didn’t want to believe me,” said Azarenka, who added that it has taken her until now to get over the episode.
“I actually can resonate what Novak said the other day. There is incredible desire for a villain and a hero story that has to be written. But we’re not villains, we’re not heroes, we are regular human beings that go through so many, many things.
“Assumptions and judgments, all those comments, are just shit, because nobody’s there to see the full story. It didn’t matter how many times I said my story, it did not cut through.”
A decade on, it is Azarenka’s tennis that is doing the talking. She will face Rybakina, a 6-2, 6-4 winner over former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, for a place in the final.