Victoria Azarenka battles past Zhang at Chicago Fall Tennis Classic

Victoria Azarenka returned to tennis at the Chicago Fall Tennis Classic and the Belarussian player had no issues defeating Zhang 6-2 6-1.

Victoria Azarenka did not enjoy a very successful North American spell so far but the former world number one is back for a do-over at the Chicago Fall Tennis Classic. She made a great start by winning comfortably against Zhang. Azarenka proved very comfortable from the early going on the court demonstrating a higher level of tennis than her opponent.

She jumped out to a 4-0 start and wrapped up the first set with 6-2 dominating on return. She won 10 of 13 points on return when Zhang missed her first serve which allowed Azarenka to break her opponent 3 times in the first set.

More or less the same happened in the 2nd set as Azarenka was once again dominant. Zhang struggled with her serve the entire day and it got worse in the 2nd set. In the first, she connected with 46 % of her first serves while in the 2nd that dropped below 40 %. Azarenka had no issues attacking her weaker 2nd serve oftentimes finish off points with the return.

Zhang was a bit better on return once again breaking Azarenka once but her inability to win her own service game doomed her today. Vika finished it off with 6-1 for a dominant display and win moving on to the 2nd round.