In today's podcast, I said that Victoria Azarenka might be even more dangerous than usual against Marion Bartoli because she was essentially playing with house money. The world No. 1, who came into tonight's quarterfinal with a flawless, 26-0 record for the year, barely escaped her last match with Dominika Cibulkova, largely because the Slovak couldn't clear the final hurdle. To put it another way, Cibulkova choked. Azarenka got a bit lucky there.
A tenet of gambling is that you quit while you're ahead. Unfortunately for Azarenka, she had no choice in the matter and had another match to play this evening with Bartoli, a much better player than Cibulkova, as well as Mona Barthel, another player who let a seemingly sure win against Azarenka escape her (at Indian Wells). Azarenka deserves credit in those wins, without question, but tonight her good fortune finally ran out. Behind a barrage of flat and hard groundstrokes, Bartoli won 6-3, 6-3 to end Vika's unbeaten run.
It was apparent from the onset that Azarenka was in for a second consecutive challenge in Miami, with Bartoli hitting darts from all over the court. The rallies were ending on her terms, if there was even a rally to begin with—Bartoli regularly teed off on Azarenka's serve. Even if Bartoli failed to end the point then and there, her aggressiveness put Azarenka on the defensive, and it showed in the scoreline. Quickly, it was 4-0 to the Frenchwoman.
This two-set match may not have had a turning point, but the most telling point to me came when Bartoli was serving up 4-2, 30-all, in the first set. Having just been broken, Bartoli was on the brink of letting her double-break lead escape her, along with letting Azarenka back in the match. Bartoli hit a good, wide serve, but Azarenka's reply was even better, pinning the server back into the corner. It resulted in a short ball that Azarenka, as she's been wont to do, feasted on. Break point.
But Bartoli refused to be tentative, even when the pressure mounted. Her brand of baseline brutality returned on the very next point, which she won, and her serving took care of the rest. The hold was huge, and she went on to comfortably serve out the set.
The reverse occurred in the second set, which Azarenka at one point led 3-1 despite losing her opening service game. Bartoli's no-margin-for-error hitting wasn't as accurate during this stretch, and she threw in two double faults to hand Azarenka a lifeline. We'd seen this before, Azarenka taking advantage of what was given to her. But for once, the Belarusian couldn't covert on the opportunity. Her shots, while for the most part well-placed, weren't as assertive as usual, and her condition was questionable—by the end, Azarenka was striking her legs and appeared to be tearing up, although that could have been related to mental, instead of physical, struggles. But the main reason for a straight-sets loss No. 1 was that Bartoli simply woke up, her forehands and backhands doing the same damage they did in the opening set.
When Azarenka won the Sydney tune-up tournament in January, she backed it up and quieted her critics by taking the Australian Open title. When she withdrew from Fed Cup and Dubai in February, she won the next event she played after each withdrawal, validating her fitness-influenced decisions to pull out. Azarenka has had all the answers this season, and this one defeat should not change anything about her incredible story. There should be no questions about her abilities any longer.
The only question I have is, will Bartoli keep this up and win the biggest title of her career? In a, as they say, contrast of styles, she plays Agnieszka Radwanska for a spot in the final.