Sloane Stephens Secures Spot in Finals at Miami Open

Sloane Stephens has succeeded in beating Victoria Azarenka in semi-final play at the Miami Open and will head to the finals to face Jelena Ostapenko. Stephens who had a slow start to the match lost the first set 3-6 but managed to come back to dominate the last two sets 6-2 and 6-1.

Stephen’s kept telling herself to keep fighting. After the U.S Open win last year saw her losing the next eight matches, the frustration she felt made her stronger, and it was those words “Keep fighting” that saw her find the strength and determination to come back and dominate the semis.

The 6th seeded Jelena Ostapenko earned her spot in the finals after defeating Danielle Collins 7-6, 6-3 on Thursday.

Speaking about the first set, Stephens said,

“In the first set, I was down but came back and I battled really well, so I knew if I did that in the second I’d be right in there. I ended up winning a lot of games in a row, and just tried to keep the momentum going.”

WTA

The first three games went to Victoria Azarenka and it was only eleven minutes into the match that saw Sloane Stephens in trouble. That trouble didn’t last long as the next 15 games went to Stephens and brought an end to Azarenka’s hopes of making the final.

Commenting on the loss,

“I honestly didn’t feel good at all the whole match. I felt like I was a little bit too slow. … I just stopped getting to the ball, I stopped hitting the ball the way I should be hitting the ball and she’s going to jump on it.”

This was only Azarenka fourth tournament after giving birth later in 2016. She returned to the tennis circuit at last year’s Wimbledon and entered Indian Wells as a wild card, losing both tournaments to Stephens. Part of Azarenka’s problems could result in the custody dispute that she is involved in and commenting on that claimed not to have any news to share on that at this time.

After her loss to Stephens, Azarenka rank jumped to 93. This comes as a result of winning against four other players who were seeded as she made her way to the semi-finals in Miami.
Discussing her overall week at Miami, Azarenka said,

“Overall, what I’ve done is not bad at all. To make the progress from one week to another week, barely practicing and barely even eating, not too bad.”

As for Stephens, besides heading to the finals, and playing in a tournament that saw the upset of Serena Williams going out in the first round, she will see other rewards for her efforts including a minimum paycheck of $654,380 if she fails to take the win, or $1,340,860 if she is victorious. That will give Sloan her second largest payday next to the $3.7 million earned for winning the U.S Open. On top of that, her semi-final win will see her improving her world rank to the top 10, not bad for a week’s work.