New milestone! Azarenka unlocks another Grand Slam achievement

This year's US Open has witnessed the retirement of several seasoned players, as Kvitova and Garcia both exited in the first round and formally ended their professional careers. The fading presence of these well-known veterans evokes a wave of sentiment among longtime tennis enthusiasts.

Thus, when Azarenka, born in 1989, faced Pavlyuchenkova, born in 1991, in the US Open women's singles second round, both players in their 30s earned our admiration no matter how they performed. Ultimately, Azarenka overcame a challenging start, trailing 0-3, and used her still sharp and precise shot variation to win in straight sets 6-3, 6-3, advancing to the US Open women's singles third round for the 15th time in her career.

For Azarenka, this victory was highly significant: it marked her 50th match win at the US Open in her career and her 100th hard-court Grand Slam win. With this, Azarenka became the fifth female player in the Open Era to reach this milestone, following Graf, Davenport, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams.

As one of the few mother players currently competing professionally, Azarenka’s journey at this US Open has been quite challenging. In the first round against qualifier Inoue Hina, she even had to check her blood pressure on-site due to physical discomfort. However, Azarenka, clearly accustomed to big stages, managed to narrowly defeat her opponent 7-6, 6-4 to reach the second round.

After eliminating Pavlyuchenkova in the second round, Azarenka’s next opponent in the third round is the US Open women's singles 4th seed Pegula, last year's runner-up, who is determined to make an impact again on home soil. Azarenka and Pegula have met six times before, each winning three matches, with their most recent encounter in the 2023 Toronto tournament where Azarenka won in straight sets.

Among other players advancing in the top half, seeds [1] Sabalenka, [5] Andreescu, [7] Paolini, [9] Rybakina, [10] Navarro, [19] Mertens, and [31] Fernandez all progressed to the third round. Meanwhile, [32] Kessler (lost to Vondrousova), [17] Samsonova (defeated by qualifier Han Tianyu), [16] Bencic (lost to local player Ann Li), and [25] Ostapenko (eliminated by Townsend) were knocked out.

Today, the second round battles in the US Open's bottom half will fully commence. The last remaining Chinese female player, Wang Xinyu, is expected to face [13] Aleksandrova tonight at 11 PM. We look forward to her securing another US Open victory!(Source: Tennis Home, Author: Barbie)