Azarenka opens up on baby, boyfriend and more

Maria Sharapova may have returned to competitive action this week, but it’s Victoria Azarenka who stars in a fashionable feature-length piece in *The New York Times*. Times sure have changed for the two-time major champion, with a new coach, Michael Joyce, and new infant son, Leo, part of her entourage.

The piece, penned by the Times’ Christopher Clarey, reveals an introspective Azarenka, one prone to philosophy (about a hitting wall from childhood: “It was the best hitting partner, because it never misses, never complains”) as much as having a little fun (see the Princess Leia hairstyle she dons for the photo shoot).

Serena Williams visited Azarenka at her Manhattan Beach, Calif., home awhile back—and Azarenka found herself fielding a litany of queries about tending to infants:

“I know that Serena was asking me a lot of questions about babies when she came by my house, and I didn’t really make anything of that. I knew it was going to be in her life at some point. I didn’t know it was happening now.”

Also addressed in the Times story: Azarenka’s knack for building new teams—three in three years—and her sometimes-complicated relationship with Belarus, her home country.

To Azarenka’s credit, she has weathered the news of her mother’s stage-4 cancer diagnosis well (unknown publicly until now) since early 2016. She won the Sunshine Double—back-to-back Indian Wells and Miami tournament titles—in March last year.

She gets more than a little help from Billy McKeague, her boyfriend who she met in Hawaii when he was a golf-club instructor and she was visiting friends, including volleyball icon Gabrielle Reece. McKeague is a former college-level hockey player. He refers to Azarenka as “V.”

Some late-breaking great news in the story: Azarenka’s mother, Ala, is now said to be cancer-free, no small feat after a stage-4 diagnosis.

“It’s only been a week that my mom has been declared cancer-free,” Azarenka told Clarey. “I was crying. My mom was crying. She was so nervous about the results, and it was just such a relief. Not that there’s never going to be tough times in life, but I feel like we have made a big jump through a lot of hurdles.”

More to come for Vika—more hurdles, and certainly more surmounting of them.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.