Azarenka Wins Fifth Grand Slam Title of 2005

Azarenka Wins Fifth Grand Slam Title of 2005--
©Colette Lewis--
Flushing Meadow NY

The weather’s streak of unsurpassed beauty continued, but Alexa Glatch’s tennis wasn’t as pretty as usual on Sunday, as the newly-minted sixteen-year-old from Southern California saw her opportunity to win the U.S. Open Junior Championship evaporate in a slew of unforced errors.



Her opponent, top seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, used her high octane groundstrokes and a strong serve to pressure Glatch into 29 unforced errors and the result was a 6-3, 6-4 victory.

“She really stepped up and played very well,” said Glatch, seeded seventh. “I give her a lot of credit. She definitely deserved that win today.”

Azarenka was gracious in the postmatch press conference. “She’s started to serve much harder, more placement and everything. She was serving very good and she uses the slices unbelieveable.”

Asked her strategy to counteract the backhand slice that is one of Glatch’s primary weapons, Azarenka said, “I was just trying to attack every ball….not to let her play like very deep slice and come into the net. I was just trying to attack every ball.”

And with as many winners as unforced errors, Azarenka, who has recently begun training in the U.S. with Adam Altschuler, succeeded in outsteadying Glatch, who had only nine winners in the match.

Azarenka will now head to professional tournaments in Asia and plans to play one more junior event, the Grade A tournament in Osaka. She has now won two Grand Slam events in singles this year and three Grand Slam doubles titles, so her place atop the junior ITF rankings at year-end is likely.

As for Glatch, she too is looking toward the WTA tour, with a Challenger event in Kentucky next for her following a two-week break at home in Newport Beach.

“I just want to keep improving my game and moving up the rankings and just do the best that I possibly can.”