World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, the reigning Australian Open champion, will try to become the first women’s top seed to win the US Open title since 2007 after ousting Maria Sharapova to reach the final.

In a rematch of the Australian Open final where she beat Sharapova to win her first Grand Slam title, the 23-year-old from Belarus rallied to defeat the Russian third seed 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 yesterday.

“I was just trying to grab the first opportunity,” Azarenka said. “Maria is such a great player. She came out firing and didn’t give me a chance to get into a rhythm. I just kept fighting with all my heart.”

In today’s final, Azarenka will play US fourth seed Serena Williams, a 14-time Grand Slam champion who seeks her fourth US Open title after overwhelming Italian 10th seed Sara Errani 6-1, 6-2 in just 64 minutes.

No women’s top seed has won the US Open since Justine Henin five years ago. No top seed has won any Grand Slam women’s crown since Williams in 2010 at Wimbledon.

This is the first time a US Open women’s final four has included the year’s prior Grand Slam champions —— Azarenka, Wimbledon and Olympic winner Williams and Sharapova, who completed a career Grand Slam with her Roland Garros title.

Azarenka improved to 12-0 in three-set matches this season, while inflicting Sharapova’s first three-set defeat in 13 such matches in 2012.

“A lot of it had to do with the returns,” Sharapova said. .

“I wasn’t doing much on her service games. I was making too many errors and not putting any pressure on her.”

Sharapova hit 44 winners but made 42 unforced errors.

Azarenka had 19 of each.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW