On Wednesday at the Southern California Open, Victoria Azarenka played her first match since her bad fall at Wimbledon and subsequent withdrawal prior to her second-round match there. The Belarusian’s comeback was celebratory, not only because it was her 24th birthday, but also because the world No.3 cruised past Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-3 into the quarterfinals.
Also in action was defending champion Dominika Cibulkova, who came fresh off her Bank of the West Classic title, but the Slovak’s run was stopped already in the first round. Ana Ivanovic wasn’t so happy when she saw that Cibulkova, who missed out on a seeding by just one place, was her first opponent, and Cibulkova looked to be heading to victory with a 6-4 3-3 lead, but Ivanovic won eight games in a row and eventually advanced 4-6 6-3 6-2.
In off-court news, Azarenka’s boyfriend Redfoo is a judge in the fifth season of Australian “The X Factor” and a soulful performance of a song “Don’t Let Me Go” by a 14-year-old Jai Waetford brought Redfoo to tears:
I’m going through something right now in a relationship, and that actually made me cry for real.
(photo: © Neal Trousdale)
Oh no, are they breaking up ? 🙁 I hope not.
But I’m really glad Martina is back. She amd Hantuchova were really convincing in their victory over Goerges/Jurak pair last night. I think it’s really good for the women’s tennis that she’s back.