Player of the week: Victoria Azarenka

19 years old Belarusian Victoria Azarenka achieved last week the biggest success of her career by winning the title in the Premier tournament of Miami, also known as "the fifth Grand Slam".


Azarenka, who had already shown a great tennis this season, had almost a perfect tournament. She gone through the early rounds to the semifinals as a hurricane, sweeping all her rivals. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (WTA 28), Anna Chakvetadze (WTA 23), Agnes Szavay (WTA 24) and Samantha Stosur (WTA 31), no one was able of taking more than 6 six games from her. In the semifinal Azarenka had a much more difficult test against 8th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova. Azarenka won the first set, but Kuznetsova reacted and took the second (the only set that Vika lost in the whole week) and the match was decided in the third with are very close 7/5 for Azarenka. It really seemed that the final was going to be too much for her, as she was facing the more experienced, WTA #1 and title holder Serena Williams, and that, as almost all the young players, she wouldn't be able to overcome the pressure. But she showed no fear or respect for the #1, and destroyed Williams by 6/3 6/1.


This title is the third for Victoria this season and confirmed that she is one of the players to follow in the big events. With this title, she has reached #8 at the WTA ranking, and her next goal will be fighting for a Grand Slam title and for #1.