With small steps, Victoria Azarenka runs deep

MELBOURNE, Australia Dinner had arrived at Jessica Pegulas coach David Witt’s player restaurant, but it didn’t bring a spot in the Australian Open semifinals.

Pegula, the No. 3-ranked player in the women’s singles tournament, had just been beaten convincingly, 6-4, 6-1, by her friend Victoria Azarenka on Tuesday at Rod Laver Arena.

Vika played pretty well, someone said, using Azarenka’s nickname.

No, Witt quickly replied. Vika played very well. We didn’t expect that at all. It was his best match in a long time.

Hard courts like Melbourne Park have long been Azarenka’s happiest hunting grounds. A former world number one, she won back-to-back Australian Opens in 2012 and 2013 and reached the US Open final both seasons, losing classic matches to Serena Williams each time. In 2020, a resurgent Azarenka defeated Williams in the US Open semifinals and gave Naomi Osaka quite a fight before losing in the final.

While many of Azarenka’s former rivals, including Williams, are retired, she has been playing, juggling motherhood with the demands of the international tennis tour and trying to focus on the challenges at hand rather than what could have been.

With her ball-striking ability, athleticism and natural combativeness, the 6-foot-6 Belorussian Azarenka, 33, had appeared to be on a long run near the top of the women’s game. But she was struck down by depression, injuries and a long custody battle with Billy McKeague, the father of their son Leo. The boy is now 6 years old and lives with Azarenka and relatives in Boca Raton, Fla., and attends school.

“Obviously she’s watching some matches, but she definitely wants her mom to be home,” Azarenka said in her on-court interview on Tuesday.

After going through some early games in Melbourne and losing the opening set to Madison Keys in the third round 6-1, Azarenka clicked into a higher gear against Pegula, a rising American who hadn’t dropped a set this tournament before her quarterfinal match. .

I am very excited, Azarenka said. I feel like I definitely appreciate being on the field more now.

She faces another tough task in a semifinal match against reigning Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina on Thursday. Rybakina’s powerful and accurate serve could provide quite a challenge for Azarenka, who has long been one of the leading returners in games.

But Azarenka has often seemed more interested in the process than the destination during this tournament. He said he tried to practice focusing on small steps instead of his more traditional, results-based goals.

I have to be patient, he said. When you win big, it’s hard to be patient, so you want to make things happen.

She felt like she couldn’t get ahead on Tuesday, and while Pegula and Witt expected Azarenkas’ form to drop, she remained on a high after a torrid start filled with deep groundstrokes and attacking flourishes that gave her a 3-0 lead. -sets the wire.

“I feel like sometimes when I play him, he can get a little fired up because of the play, but tonight it really didn’t feel like he was off at all,” Pegula said. It just made it very difficult. At the same time, I feel that I gave him a lot of inevitable mistakes, a lot of mistakes.

Pegula was uncomfortable in slow conditions, with the Laver Arenas roof closed due to rain, and had to scrap nearly every game he won, navigating six deuces before holding serve in the fourth game. Although she broke Azarenka at 5-3, Pegula fired a short shot into the net at 15-0 in the next game, halting her momentum as Azarenka broke back to win the set and take control of the match for good.

Pegula, 28, a late bloomer who overcame significant hip and knee injuries early in his career, is now 0-5 in Grand Slam singles quarterfinals and has lost at that point in the last three Australian Opens.

“Obviously I’m upset about tonight, but at the same time I’m putting myself in these positions to go deep in these tournaments,” he said. I think I’ve proven it. I’ve been super consistent.

He continued: I hope it comes together. I definitely want to do better. I want to do more.

Azarenka can certainly relate. He has had to fight his own perfectionist streak that sometimes left him overwhelmed and in tears during matches in the tour’s early years. She has continued to be hard on herself, saying that smashing rackets after a first-round loss to Ekaterina Alexandrova in Ostrava, Czech Republic last October was a recent low point.

I felt like especially last year my tennis wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t really there mentally, she said. I played with a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety, and it was really hard to be brave and make the right choices in the important moments.

When asked about his fears, he said: The fear of failure is great. To not be able to do what I want to do. So subconsciously it sometimes prevents you from doing it. I find the feeling of discomfort scary. I’ve had panic attacks before.

But he said he had worked a lot on his thinking.

Because when you achieve great success, sometimes you become conservative and hesitant to try new things, he said. This offseason I was like, You know what? I’m just open-minded and try new things, keep my head down and work hard.

The 2022 season was full of unexpected challenges, including players from Belarus and Russia being banned from playing at Wimbledon due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Azarenka, one of Belarus’ most prominent athletes, has called for peace and said she is devastated by war. She was also a member of the WTA Players’ Council with Pegula, who supported the decision to strip Wimbledon of the ranking points typically awarded at the tournament in retaliation for the ban.

Ukrainian players protested when Azarenka was included in an exhibition before last year’s US Open to raise funds for relief efforts in Ukraine. Azarenka did not participate in the event.

It’s a very complicated and very delicate situation to manage, said Maxime Tchoutakian, his coach. It was difficult for him, but it was a difficult time for many players and they have to try to manage it as best they can.

Azarenka has said that she donated clothes to help Ukrainian junior players and gave other financial support. The war continues and it is unclear whether Wimbledon will take back the Russians and Belarusians this year. But Azarenka, ranked 24th in Melbourne, looked particularly fit and focused on Tuesday: quick to the corners to defend but also determined to move forward and attack to prevent Pegula from settling into the kind of rhythm that suits her excellent timing and smooth hitting. so well.

I knew I had to play fast and not give her a chance to step in and I had to mix it up,” Azarenka said. Because there’s no one better at hip level than Jess. He just doesn’t miss.

Azarenka sliced. He threw looping forehands, ripped off winning volleys and served with more consistency than usual against a player who had been among the leaders in Melbourne in breaking opposition serves.

It worked, and now, for the first time in 10, Azarenka is back in the semifinals at the Australian Open, a tournament she dominated twice and where her image can be seen in the tunnel of champions the players pass through on their way to Laver Arena. .

His life has changed so much since 2013, as Leo makes clear. He was with him in Melbourne last year and joined him in a press conference after one of his matches. But he has school commitments this year and couldn’t make the trip.

A few more days here and I’ll be back, Azarenka told her son in her on-court interview after extending her play.

Honestly, Witt said, I don’t think he could have played any better.