Serena Williams has defeated Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in the final of Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Serena won the match in the straight sets by 6-1, 6-3.
Serena was the top favourite to win this tournament as she was the top seeded player and the American veteran lived up to the expectations. She overpowered her Belarusian opponent in the final in just 1 hour and 33 minutes and won the 51st WTA title of her career.
Serena has been in fantastic form off late. This was her 24th consecutive victory.
Against Azarenka, this was Serena’s 12th win in 14 matches.
In the post match interview, Serena said, “This was my best performance in the tournament. I felt quite comfortable out there on the court and capitalized on the chances that I got.”
Serena was off to a great start in the first set. She got a couple of breakthroughs in the first three games and got ahead by 3-0.
The American veteran dropped her serve in the 4th game, but, that didn’t make much of a difference. She broke her opponent’s serve in the 5th and the 7th game again and won the next three games successively to seal the set by 6-1.
In the second set, there were no breakthroughs in the first 5 games and Serena was ahead by 3-2 when the 5th game got finished.
Azarenka’s serve was broken in the 6th game which increased Serena’s lead to 4-2. However, Serena lost her advantage soon as she was broken back in the very next game.
Azarenka had the opportunity to equalize the scores by holding her serve in the 8th game, but, she couldn’t do that. She dropped her serve for the second time in the set and got trailed by 3-5.
Serena wrapped up the match by serving out the next game comfortably and won the title.