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Australian Open 2012

January 20, 2012 by · Comments Off on Australian Open 2012 

Australian Open 2012, The in-form third seed was stretched more than in the first two rounds, where she recorded 6-1, 6-0 wins, though once again found herself making headlines for the wrong reasons.

In her previous match, against local favourite Casey Dellacqua, Azarenka was mocked by the crowd following some high-decibel grunting from the 22 year-old.

The rangy Barthel, who won a warm-up event in Hobart as a qualifier and was making her debut at Melbourne Park, had enough power and accuracy in her groundstrokes to test the Belarussian but failed to capitalise on three break points.

The 21 year-old resisted to the end and Azarenka fumed over some line calls in the final game before securing a fourth round meeting with Czech Iveta Benesova on her fifth match point when her opponent netted a volley.

Azarenka, who needed five match points, said she struggled to seal the victory after losing her concentration toward the end of the second set when two line calls went against her. The Belarusian already had used up all her challenges.

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