A HUGE upset was the story of the day at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, with third seed Sofia Kenin going down in straight sets to in-form Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. While Azarenka has been in excellent form, making two straight finals in New York – winning one by default – it was not the fact that she won the battle against Kenin, but more so the way she did it – in a flawless 6-0 6-0 blitzing against the Australian Open champion. 

Azarenka was dominant, relentless and resisted every Kenin blow to reign supreme in the 61-minute battle, recording just four unforced errors to Kenin’s 22 in an excellent back-to-back win after defeating Venus Williams just yesterday. 

“I think my consistency was the key to the scoreline,” Azarenka told press after the victory. “I feel like I played really smart tennis today: I was able to use a lot of court, I was able to use a lot of different pace. So I’m very happy with that. But the key was definitely being able to maintain the level that I started with.”

Azarenka was clinical recording two aces and zero double faults, capitalising off both her own serve – winning 74 per cent of points – and Kenin’s too, making a masterclass out of the 21-year-old.

“I feel that I’m able to manage my ‘arsenal’ of the shots that I have, better,” she reflected. “I’ve always been able to generate different shots, play with different spins and find different angles – but I don’t think I was confident that I was able to do that in a match. 

“I’m just not afraid to try things that I know I can do well, and then see what happens… I’ve always been eager to learn, to improve and develop – and that’s important to go up another level, and I feel like I have with my game and my tactics.”

Fellow top tier players joining Kenin on the sidelines ahead of the Round of 16 are fifth seed Kiki Bertens, eighth seed Petra Martic and 14th seed Anett Kontaveit, with Bertens defeated in straight sets by Polona Hercog, while the latter two put up a huge fight but were both unable to contend with their respective opposition in Yulia Putintseva and Svetlana Kuznetsova. 

Putintseva battled through a tough Martic who was unwilling to go down without a fight, with the huge 6-3 6-7 6-4 battle going three hours straight. While Martic kept her head down to get the job done in the second set, Putintseva was clinical and led majority of the stats on her way to victory. Kuznetsova got the chocolates in just her second battle against Kontaveit, turning the tables on their 2018 match – interestingly at the same stage at the same competition – and coming from behind for the 4-6 7-5 6-3 victory in two hours and 45 minutes.

In other games, Garbine Muguruza reigned supreme over young gun Coco Gauff in a close to two and a half hours on court, while seventh seed Briton Johanna Konta had it much easier against Irina-Camelia Begu, winning 6-0 6-4. Marketa Vondrousova continued her solid form with a win over Arantxa Rus, though compatriot Katerina Siniakova was not quite so lucky going down to Daria Kasatkina in 80 minutes.