The former world’s number one Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) defeated Anna Kalinskaya (Russia) in the second round of the WTA 500 Brisbane International with a prize pool of 1,736,763 USD. The Belarusian tennis player won the match by 2-0 (6:1, 7:6) in 2:13 hours of play.
Although the match started strongly for Victoria Azarenka, who made two early break to lead by 5:0 and closed the first set at 6:1, she suffered to reach the win. The second set brought a lot of turnovers, long rallies and reached the tiebreak. Victoria Azarenka made a break and led by 2:0, keeping her advance almost to the end and she served for the match at 5:4, reaching even a match point. However, Anna Kalinskaya saved the match point and returned to the game, equalizing to deuce, and eventually break in her first breakpoint. The Belarusian player did not retreated and registered another break “on 15” to lead again by 6:5 and serve for the match, but her Russian opponent broke and again and equalized to 6:6, moving the match into a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, Anna Kalinskaya saved three more match point, but at the end Victoria Azarenka succeeded to win it by 10-8 and thus won the match.
In the Round of 16, Victoria Azarenka will face the winner between Anhelina Kalinina (Ukraine) and Clara Burel (France).
In another match of the day, the 16th-seeded Sofia Kenin (USA) lost to Arina Rodionova (Australia) by 0-2 (5:7, 6:7), while Linda Noskova (Czech Republic) turned over Timea Babos (Hungary) in a 3-hour battle after losing the first set, but finally won the match by 2:1 (5:7, 7:6, 7:6).
Lucia Bronzetti (Italy) reached quite easier victory versus Ashlyn Krueger (USA) by 2-0 (6:4, 7:5).
