Azarenka pushes late to enter Brisbane International quarterfinal

Victoria Azarenka celebates a third round victory against Clara Burel at the Brisbane International. 

Victoria Azarenka finishes strong to snap her opponent out of the Brisbane International on Thursday. Moving into the court late against Clara Burel, allowed her to dominate to victory in straight sets 7-5, 6-2 at Pat Rafter Arena at the Queensland Tennis Center. It marked Azarenka’s 98th career quarterfinal in a tournament she loves.

The 34-year-old opened the 2024 season with a strong victory over Anna Kalinskaya, winning 6-1, 7-6 back in Brisbane. Finding the comfort early, the former world number one readied herself for a new challenge in Burel. The Frenchwoman extended her match streak to eight after her defeat of Anhelina Kalinina in straight sets, losing just five games in round one. Since July, she has carried a 27-8 record on hard-court matches. With a spot in the quarterfinal looming, both players would stir up challenges for the other to gain the top-eight spot.

Azarenka served up the first win to her name, giving Burel a point. She notched a break of the 22-year-old and backed things up with a hard-fought third game. Burel pushed her to deuce, but after a couple of breaks, the former world number took a 3-0 lead. Burel managed to get a service hold in the fourth, but once her opponent had the ball back, it was 4-1 for Azarenka.

Burel secured a second consecutive service hold in the sixth, cutting into the margin on the eighth seed. She went on to come up, with a break to love opportunity, but two lost breaks went by before Burel held Azarenka back. She backed it up to level the score at four-all, handing the eighth seed a wakeup call to change tactics. The 34-year-old made good on her service in the ninth, denying the Frenchwoman any further steps forward to regain control.

Burel achieved the serve to love in the tenth as a statement to Azarenka that the set would go the distance. The eighth seed responded with a hold and focused on the break in the 12th. Azarenka built together two set-point chances and waited patiently for her opponent to err, bringing the first to a close after 56 minutes. Burel had more winners than Azarenka, but the 34-year-old dominated with the first serve at 78 percent, rolling her success into the second set.

She constructed another lead for herself, hoping that she could keep the French star far back. With the break in hand, Azarenka fought back Burel to contain service and lead 3-0. Burel finally found a way to dig into the fourth with balls in hand and use her skills to play deep and finish it on an ace. By the end of the fifth, the set mirrored much like the first, with Azarenka back to a three-game margin.

Burel was on point with her service game, but her opponent made other arrangements to try and close out the match. Errors from the 22-year-old handed Azarenka easy match points to attain and get into place with three straight match points. The eighth seed watched her opponent hit one into the net that ended her lengthy winning streak and put Azarenka into her fifth quarterfinal of the tournament after 1 hour and 33 minutes. 

"She was changing up the game," Azarenka said about her opponent after the match. "I was trying to be aggressive and come to the net, but I felt like she was on top of me and made some amazing passing shots." 

"It was a very competitive match, very good, and thought that when I needed to I could step up my game."

She’ll take another good performance in stride to prepare for her quarterfinal against the winner of Jelena Ostapenko and Karolina Pliskova on Friday.