Grand Slam Sparks Career For Slam

Tennis Betting Lines

Both semifinal matches lasted two hours, 12 minutes.

Melbourne, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova will square off in Saturday's women's Australian Open final after they both survived tense three-set semifinal matches on Thursday. Azarenka, seeded third, ended Kim Clijsters' run at consecutive Australian Open titles by besting the four-time Grand Slam champion, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3, at Rod Laver Arena.

After that battle, Sharapova downed second-seeded Petra Kvitova 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 to avenge her loss to the Czech in last year's Wimbledon finale.

The 21-year-old Kvitova missed wildly on an overhead smash to lose her second service game, the first of three breaks for Sharapova in the opening set.

Sharapova, seeded fourth, lost the second set, and was down 0-30 at 4-4 in the third before a replay reversal gave her new life. The Russian won the next four points to put the pressure back on Kvitova, who could not hold serve thanks to several unforced errors in the final game.

The former world No. 1 Sharapova's last major title came at the 2008 Aussie Open. The Russian was the Aussie runner-up in 2007.

If this was, in fact, the Belgian's final visit to the season's first major, she went down fighting. Azarenka broke Clijsters' second service game of the match, then fought off four break chances in the proceeding game.

Azarenka held serve with relative ease the rest of the opening set to stay in the driver's seat, but Clijsters began her comeback by breaking at love on Azarenka's first service game in the second.

"I felt like my hand is about 200 kilograms and my body is about 1,000 and everything is shaking, but that feeling when you finally win is such a relief. My God I cannot believe it's over. I just want to cry," Azarenka said as she fought off tears, then put her face in a towel.

In the quarterfinals, Clijsters fought off four match points against last year's Aussie runner-up to her, Li Na.

"The match was very close. There were a few deciding moments where I think I maybe had a little bit of an advantage, in the third set, especially that first game where I had break point," Clijsters said. "But she definitely played really well. So she deserved to win at the end."

comments

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•    #Djokovic is unsure that #Murray’s new coach, 8 time Grand Slam champion Ivan Lendl, can make an immediate difference in his student’s play!

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•    Shrieking Azarenka complains about crowd noise? Wow! #AO

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•    Men's Tennis is now boring....You can predict the last 4 in each grand slam. 1) Djokovic 2) Nadal 3) Federer 4) Murray

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•    Elke ochtend is hangover op slam fm -___-"

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•    I swear Cher Lloyd is trying to make a career out of rhyming 2 words that don't rhyme.

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•    Got my two hardest finals tomorrow -__- #FML

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•    nadal early in his career barely ever made to the finals on any other surface

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