Victoria Azarenka (photo ©Assaf Yekuel) reached the final defeating Heather Watson, Casey Dellacqua, Mona Barthel, Iveta Benesova, Agnieszka Radwanska and Kim Clijsters. She lost two sets: one to Agnieszka Radwanska and one to Kim Clijsters. For Victoria Azarenka it’s the first final in a Grand Slam tournament and this shows both her technical and mental progress.

Maria Sharapova reached the final defeating Gisela Dulko, Jamie Hampton, Angelique Kerber, Sabine Lisicki, Ekaterina Makarova and Petra Kvitova. She lost two sets: one to Sabine Lisicki and one to Petra Kvitova. Maria Sharapova returns to the Australian Open final after four years and in 2008 she won her last Grand Slam tournament. After that, there was the long stop due to her shoulder injury and the return to competition in which she came back to high level step by step.

Maria Sharapova breaks Victoria Azarenka in the first game but the Belarusian breaks her back in the fourth game and in the eighth she breaks her again. In the next game Azarenka serves for the set and wins it 6-3.

Victoria Azarenka starts the second set breaking Maria Sharapova and does it again in the third and fifth game. In the sixth game the Belarusian serves for the set and wins it 6-0 conquering the match and her first Grand Slam title.

Maria Sharapova isn’t happy: after losing the 2011 Wimbledon final she hoped this was the right chance to win a Grand Slam title again but her opponent played much better than her. Certainly she’ll try again.

Victoria Azarenka played a fantastic final. So far, her nerves were her main problem but in this final she was very calrm so she could express all her technical skills to win her first Grand Slam title.

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This edition of the Australian Open also marks a change in the leadership of the WTA ranking. Caroline Wozniacki has been the No. 1 in the world except for a week for fifteen months but next Monday she’ll be No. 4. Over the past year she seemed even regressed under a technical point of view playing as defensive as ever.

Now for Caroline Wozniacki losing the head of the WTA ranking could be positive because people will stop telling her that a true number one should win some Grand Slam titles. However if she doesn’t want to fall further in the ranking now she must really change something not only in her technicque but also in her attitude on court.

With her victory at the Australian Open, Victoria Azarenka also becomes number 1 in the WTA ranking and because she won the title also playing aggressively she’ll not hear all the criticisms that have been leveled against Caroline Wozniacki. Congratulations, Vika!