It wasn’t easy by any means—she was down 4-0 in the third set and even fought off a match point trailing 5-4—but Victoria Azarenka battled her way to victory against Yulia Putintseva in the first round of the WTA 1000 event Doha today, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5.
And it was a special one: it was the 500th tour-level win of her career.
“I didn’t really look that the score was down,” she told WTATennis.com. “I knew that I have to keep going, I will find my opportunity, and I’m really glad I stuck with it here.”
She’s now 500-194 in her career at tour-level, and more specifically that’s 346-117 on hard courts—that means 69% of her career wins have come on hard courts.
She’s also won 20 of her 21 career WTA titles on hard—she won one WTA 250 on clay in Marbella, Spain in 2011. Both of her Grand Slam titles (at the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013) and all three of her other career Grand Slam finals (at the US Open in 2012, 2013 and 2020) have come on hard courts.