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BRISBANE INTERNATIONALJanuary 3, 2013Victoria AzarenkaBRISBANE, QUEENSLAND V. AZARENKA/K. Pervak THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Fairly convincing scoreline. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, it was pretty good. Even though we had some tough games, it was few like advantages and deuce, I felt I was playing really well at the important moments and taking my chances to close out the games. I think that was the key today as well. Q. As Melbourne draws closer, that sort of result must be reassuring for you. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, I don't look ahead. I'm just here to play this tournament day by day. Whatever comes next comes next. When I'm going to be there I'll be thinking about it. Right now it's not in my head. Q. And you won't be in Sydney? VICTORIA AZARENKA: I'm not playing Sydney and I was not supposed to. Q. Is there any reason why you chose Brisbane over Sydney? Last year worked so well for you. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, I wanted to have a week in between to just get ready. It wasn't something like, Oh, if I do the exact same thing it's going to be the same result. I never really look at it that way. I thought it would suit me best with my off‑court schedule as well. I wanted to come back here to play. I always heard, you know, it was a strong field, so I wanted to have a good tournament as well. Q. Talking about a strong field, there is a chance you'll play Serena next. Thoughts about playing her potentially. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, it's a tough match, there is not question about it. I'm looking forward to it. There is one more chance for us to meet, and it's going to be a great test for the Australian Open. I'm not looking for easy matches. The tougher it is the more exciting for me it's going to be. So I'm quite happy with that. Q. You've played her 12 times now. Have you learned something different every time you played her? VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, every time I learned something. You know, it's the matter of getting it all together and try to execute it in the right way. Q. How hard is it to return her first serve? You've played a lot of good servers. She obviously can hit it hard, but I guess there are some different things about it that make it tough to get back in play. Does she spot it well where it's hard to read? VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah. I mean, it's obvious she has one of the best serves on tour, and it's a combination if things. But I'm not going to be thinking about how well she serves. My job is to try to put the ball back, you know, then I'll try to play my game. We'll see how it goes. Q. Today in the second set, in the fourth game, you yelled out during a point. VICTORIA AZARENKA: I what? Q. There was a notable yell from you during a point. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Okay. I think you can always hear that from me. Q. I've never heard you do it before. Do you remember the point? You were hitting a lob; before Pervak hit it you yelled. It was a sort of noise. VICTORIA AZARENKA: I don't know. I remember something that I was on the run and kind of like tried to stretch out. Q. Were you in pain at all? Did you do anything? Is that why you yelled? Something jarred in your leg? VICTORIA AZARENKA: No, it was just very tough position to recover from. You know, kind of just helped me to get over it. But I didn't feel like there was something exceptional. Q. Sloane Stephens was saying yesterday she thinks as great as Serena is, that it's inevitable that her winning streak will eventually end. Do you feel that way? VICTORIA AZARENKA: I don't really care about that. Q. But you're playing her. VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, but I'm there to win the match, not to end somebody's streaks and not to stop somebody from doing something. I'm just focused on myself, and that's how I always am. Q. But you've been around sport enough to know that someone cannot win forever, right, regardless of how good you are? VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah. That's a true fact. Q. Given your record against Serena ‑ it's been quite a few years since you have beaten her ‑ do you think you need to beat her here so you have that confidence that you can do it in a Grand Slam? VICTORIA AZARENKA: I would like to win every time we meet. It doesn't really matter where it is. The importance of the stage probably there is ‑ I'm not going to lie ‑ if you play a Grand Slam or you play a little bit smaller tournament. But the importance is to win every match. Q. Pretty hot conditions out there. What do you do in in your recovery? Do you do ice baths? Just drink fluids? Massage? VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, you try to do all those things. Ice bath is not my favorite thing. When I really have a long match I would do that and I would suffer for it, but today I didn't feel like doing the ice bath. I have a full‑time physio with me that's a huge part of my recovery. The food is important. The sleep is important. To just enjoy yourself. Having good emotions and positive thought also is a good key to recovery. Q. Do you find yourself getting more pumped up playing other elite players, or do you just treat them like the top 40, top 50 player? VICTORIA AZARENKA: I treat my opponent always with a lot of respect and I never underestimate anybody. Q. What I'm saying is emotionally when you're going out to play another great player, do you get more excited about that? VICTORIA AZARENKA: I think it kind of depends on the stages also of the tournament and particularly matches and also just the emotions inside. Sometimes you are maybe a little bit tired and you don't feel as pumped up, but once you walk on the court it changes. And I feel like throughout day, it also depends when you play, you kind of try to manage your emotions, too. I don't think about the match before I go on court, so I cannot say that I'm overexcited when I play somebody. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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