Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka described how the flick of a mental switch powered her past tennis queen Kim Clijsters and into her first grand slam final at the Australian Open on Thursday.
Azarenka took the first set of their tense semi-final but she flagged in the second and looked on the ropes as four-time major-winner Clijsters took the second set 6-1 to level the match. But 22-year-old Azarenka, showing new-found resilience, scrapped her way back into the match to seal an emotional victory 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.
“She was really dominating. She made me run so much, I felt like I was running like a marathon out there,” Azarenka said. “I just tried to start to be more aggressive and tried to play my game and, yeah, start from the beginning. “I have one more set to go. I have another, I don’t know, hour, 30 minutes, 40 minutes to make a difference. That was my mental approach.”