GUADALAJARA OPEN

September 20, 2023

Victoria Azarenka

Press Conference

V. AZARENKA/V. Kudermetova

6-2, 6-1

Q. Vika, we saw you very happy on the court, you were dancing. How do you feel after this victory?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: It was definitely a very good win for me, especially my first win against Veronika. So I was really looking forward to try to get my revenge and see how I can change the match into my favor, all the things I can do differently. I felt that I played really smart today with a good tactic, and also very good execution. I'm happy that I was able to get a win against her, for sure.

Q. You look so solid in your game. You're still winning all your sets. You look so adapted to the conditions here in Guadalajara. Can we think you're going to be in the best moment in this moment to your game to get the win, to win the title?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, it's still a far way to go. I'm only halfway through for the title. I need to think about my match tomorrow and nothing really else. Every day is a little bit different. The conditions change from day to night. It depends on the weather as well.

I feel like, I don't feel that you really get used to, that much, to the condition, because it's quite challenging. The ball does fly quite a lot, and you have to adapt sometimes your shots maybe not the same way I would play maybe where it's more humid and less, definitely less altitude. I take every day as an adaptation.

Also the opponent can be very different, play a very different part in that equation. So, yeah, I just take it one match at a time and hopefully can continue to elevate my game through the week.

Q. You have back-to-back wins after Wimbledon also in this tournament. How do you feel about that back-to-back wins after Wimbledon?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, I mean, I don't really think too much about that. It's a long season. There's a lot of things happen throughout those last two months. I try to don't think too much what happened at the US Open or somewhere else. It's past. It doesn't really matter any more.

I just try to enjoy my time here, and do my best here, and also to improve from one match to the other to try to find ways how I can elevate my game. Not just for this week but for next year and for the next tournament that I'm still going to play this year.

Q. And your next match is against Caroline. What can we expect for this match?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, Caroline is a very tricky opponent. She had an incredible end of the season last year with winning such big titles and playing so well. I feel like this year she's been a little bit more up and down.

She's always a very dangerous player. She won pretty good matches here, big battles. I'm looking forward to the challenge. We had quite big battles in the past. We haven't played in a while, so it's going to be interesting to see what I can do. But I really want to focus as much as I can on myself and how I can improve myself, how I can try to add few things for the future as well, not just for this week or for tomorrow or after tomorrow. It's really trying to have just a little bit of a bigger vision and patience to see how those things progress.