Viktoriya Fiodorovna Azarenka, also known as
Victoria Azarenka (, ; born 31 July 1989) is a
Belarusian professional tennis player. Her career high and current ranking is World No. 4, which she first achieved on 9 May 2011. She became the highest-ranked Belarusian player ever, surpassing
Natasha Zvereva by one spot.
Azarenka has won two mixed doubles
Grand Slam titles –
2007 US Open with
Max Mirnyi and
2008 French Open with
Bob Bryan. She has won seven singles titles, including the Premier Mandatory
Sony Ericsson Open in 2009 and 2011 and has made one
Grand Slam semifinal appearance at the
2011 Wimbledon Championships and another five quarterfinal appearances overall.
Personal
Her move to
Scottsdale from
Minsk, Belarus was aided by
National Hockey League goalie
Nikolai Khabibulin and his wife, who is a friend of Azarenka's mother.Reuters: .
The Guardian (21 April 2008). Retrieved on 29 June 2011.
Tennis career
2005
In 2005, Azarenka won the Australian Open and US Open as a junior and was named the ITF Junior Girls World Champion for that year, the first player from Belarus to do that. She also won her first ITF title in Pétange, Luxembourg in the same year. In Guangzhou, China, she reached her first pro-level semi-final, winning three qualifying rounds and defeating
Martina Suchá and
Shuai Peng in the main draw before losing to eventual champion
Yan Zi.
2006
In 2006, at the event in...
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