NO REGRETS: Victoria Azarenka after losing the US Open women’s final to Serena Williams on Sunday. (UPI)
Reuters/New York
Victoria Azarenka walked off court with her head held high after a gallant loss to Serena Williams in the US Open final on Sunday, and while satisfied she had given her all there was no doubt the defeat stung.
“I’m not going to lie. It hurts bad,” she conceded. “It’s okay. I did everything I could. I gave my heart. I fought as hard as I could. I lost to a great champion and I’m still going to have my head up.”
After losing the first set, Azarenka produced a phenomenal second where she fought back from 1-4 and 3-5 down to force a decider. But the 24-year-old was unable to carry momentum into the deciding set as Williams, who had thrown her racquet into her chair at the changeover, took care of the third set to complete victory in two hours and 45 minutes.
“She really made it happen,” Azarenka said. “There was no letdown. It was a moment in the third set that the momentum changed a little bit, and I kind of felt like I lost that momentum. She was tougher, she was more consistent and she deserved to win.”
The ball-striking was superb from the top two players in the world. Azarenka showed enormous determination to recover from two breaks down in the second set, but her fightback took its toll. Come the third set, she was running on empty.
“It was raising from the first point, the tension, the battle, the determination,” Azarenka explained. “It felt from every point, it was rising, the level.”
“Well, there’s one word,” she said of Williams. “She’s a champion, and she knows how to repeat that. She knows what it takes to get there.
“I know that feeling, too. And when two people meet who want that feeling so bad, it’s a clash. That’s what happens out there with those battles. And in the important moments, it is who is more brave, who is more consistent, who takes more risks... You can never play safe.”
“She’s playing definitely her best tennis right now. That’s just exciting for me, to be able to compete against that type of player who can be the greatest of all time.”
The 24-year-old said she was determined to view her defeat as a positive when she visits her family in Belarus this week.
“You cannot sit and say, ‘Oh my God, this is the worst thing that could have happened to me.’ Because it’s not. I just want to take the positive and see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.