Azarenka Dominates in the 2nd Round of the US Open against Flipkens

1st seed Victoria Azarenka made short work of her opponent Kirsten Flipkens.  The petite Belgian lacked the firepower to compete with Azarenka’s thundering groundstrokes and could only manage 4 points against the Belarusian’s serve in the first set.  Controlling the pace of the match, Azarenka forced the versatile Flipkens to play almost exclusively from the baseline.  The result was a first set that wrapped up in just 27 minutes, with Azarenka coming away at 6-2.

The beginning of the 2nd set saw Flipkens creep up towards the net more and was awarded with a breakpoint opportunity at 2-1 up.  Azarenka, however, was able to power through the game and set her sights on taking the 2nd set as quickly as possible.  At 2-4 and on serve, Flipkens looked to be suffering from some abdominal troubles and lost her serve for the final time in the match.  Serving for the set, Azarenka came away with a clean victory at 6-2, 6-2 in 65 minutes.

Azarenka will play Jie Zheng of China in the 3rd round.  Zheng is coming off a solid victory over the 66th ranked Magdalena Rybarikova but will have her work cut out for her against the no. 1 seed.  In other results from today’s morning session, Nadia Petrova defeated Simona Halep 6-1, 6-1 and American Mallory Burdette is also through to the 3rd round following a straight-set victory over Lucie Hradecka.  15th seed Lucie Safarova defeated Aleksandra Wozniak in a hard fought three set battle.