Azarenka begins grass with a season

Viktoria Azarenka didn't have a great stay in Paris at Roland Garros but she bounced back well in her first grass match of this year beating Stevanovic 7-6(5) 6-3 in Den Bosch.

Azarenka is a great grass player having had success on the surface in the past. She is capable of playing some excellent tennis on it and while today's match wasn't on that level she did more than enough to take care of business and advance to the next round. Stevanovic did really well pushing Azarenka to a first-set tiebreak narrowly losing it.

Azarenka took an early break 2-1 in the match but Stevanovic battled back immediately to make it 2-2. After that, we saw a very close battle with neither player being able to create much. Azarenka wiggled out of a very complicated situation at the end o the opening set saving a couple of set points to force a tiebreak which she won 7-5.

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If she lost the opening set, the match could have gone very differently so that sequence at the end of it was pretty much the crucial point in the match. Stevanovic faltered as the match went on and Azarenka was able to establish control of the match. She took a 5-3 lead at the best possible time after which she closed it out 6-3. A nice straight-set win for the Belarusian through a match that lasted two hours. She had aces and served generally well winning the majority of points behind the first set.

The second serve was a bit more shaky but she played the crucial rallies a lot better saving 6 out of 7 break points she faced. On return, she converted 2 of 5 which is pretty solid for grass tennis. Just a pretty solid performance to get things underway.

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