This season seems to be never-ending for Vika Azarenka, who was forced to retire during her match against Johanna Konta in Wuhan when down one set to love. Azarenka reported yesterday a thigh injury that forced her to play not at her very best and that ultimately led to her retirement.
This year has been a rollercoaster for the Belarusian player, who has also had her fair share of bad luck, having to meet in six of the fourteen tournaments she’s played in either Williams, Sharapova or Halep.
But in the other eight events she was able to get to the final stages of a tournament only once, producing more often than not a level of tennis quite far from the one that brought her to being at the top of the game four years ago. She’s now stuck around the 20th position, something that comes as a bit of a shock to experts and fans that expected her to climb up the ranking more easily and rapidly.
After the foot injury that prevented her to play any tournament following last year’s Tokyo Pan Pacific Open held in September, many believed this could be the year of Azarenka. Things, however, unraveled in a different way for a series of reasons, like the split from her coach Symuk and other small injuries, that lie outside Azarenka’s faults and that have probably contributed to the impasse she seems to be in right now.
The former number one, however, is trying to look at the positives and she is already planning ahead for the next season: “The important thing for me is to get my body fit 100%, on a consistent basis. I have a lot of work to do. That’s why I think my mind is a little bit thinking too much for the next year because I I have a plan what to do already in my off-season. I guess that kind of distracts me a little bit.”
She is going to work with her new team primarily on the fitness side as the game, she says, is already getting closer to the level she wants.
