2011 Williams Watch-On To The Fourth Round

Serena's third round match yesterday against fourth seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus was a tale of two sets.  It took her 17 minutes to race to a 5-0 lead and 28 total minutes of work to comfortably breeze through the first set  

The second set was a different story as it took an hour and twenty-two minutes to play..

In the second set Azarenka fought her tooth and nail.  She survived three match points in the ninth game, broke Serena's serve in the next game and eventually forced a tiebreaker.  Little Sis eventually triumphed 6-1,7-6 (7-5) despite struggling with her serve for most of the day.  

Serena only got 49% of her first serves in for the match, but whacking 12 aces and hitting 39 winners will take you a long way in determining who wins and who loses in a closely fought match filled with high quality shots from both sides..  But Serena's task of surviving this match and moving on was accomplished and served notice that despite been seeded 28th, she is one of the favorites to win this edition of the US Open and capture her 14th title.

She moves on to the fourth round and a match with Serbia's Ana Ivanovic.