DOHA: Victoria Azarenka avenged the loss of her world number one ranking to Serena Williams by beating the American for only the second time in 13 attempts to successfully defend her Qatar Open title on Sunday.
The Belarusian's 7-6 (8/6), 2-6, 6-3 win over the legendary American also completed back-to-back title defences, as last month she also defended the Australian Open title in Melbourne.
She was helped by Williams making the worst of starts. She was twice break point down in her opening service game, but held on. She followed it with two double faults and two unforced errors to drop serve in her second service game.
Unforced errors continued to spray from Williams' racket, especially on the forehand, and by the fourth game she was showing signs of fretting, looking repeatedly at her camp and grimacing.
At that stage Azarenka had won 12 straight points and was hitting the ball well, with a clear game plan to strike as early and as far up the court as possible, often targeting the Williams forehand. Williams responded by ditching her racket.
The new one soon brought improvements but Azarenka had advanced to 4-2 before Williams broke back. She also complained to the umpire about Azarenka repeatedly putting her hand up before receiving serve, affecting her rhythm.
Williams' aura of frustration continued into the tie-break even though by then she was bombarding Azarenka far more heavily.
She came from 2-5 down to earn a set point at 6-5, only for Azarenka to save it with an excellent combination of a solid return and a heavy backhand drive.
When Azarenka immediately bettered it with a spectacular inside-out return of serve winner to reach 7-6, she converted her set point at once.
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