Vika Lives to Fight Another Day

When I saw Vika take a nasty fall in her first round match at Wimbledon I feared that that would be the end of her campaign this year. The Belorussian is a renowned drama queen, but even so, the scene was frightening. Azarenka leaned towards the ball when she slipped and twisted her knee. She immediately fell to the ground screaming and shouting with pain.
"After the serve, it happened so quickly in a second that my leg kind of collapsed," she said. "It felt like my knee just turned to the other way, and it was just so nasty. I was in such shock. For two minutes I had such consistent pain that it just completely freaked me out. Because you never know - you're just down on the ground and you never know what happened. It was so quick and a huge shock. 

"At that moment it's so shocking because you have no ground. You basically just fall. Your legs go one way and there's no balance or nothing. Nothing I could control in that moment, and that's scary."

The physio came to assess the damage and, after heavily tapping the injured knee, Vika decided to continue. She was already 6-1,1-0 up against Portugal's Maria Joao Koehler and she knew that if she can somehow overcome her opponent, she would get a much needed break to properly deal with the misfortune situation.

"At that moment I was just thinking I had to try to do something," the Belorussian said. "I was concerned, and the physios were concerned. 'Can you go through, can you play on it?' And I had no idea until I went and tried. It felt really painful. One moment it was getting better, then it was inconsistent - but I just wanted to give everything I had on the court even though I knew it could get worse out there. So I really went for my shots - I felt like I had to be aggressive, to finish as quick as possible."

Taking advantage of Koehler's lack of experience, she did manage to close out an easy 6-1,6-2 victory. Although she has been accused of gaming her schedule by pulling out of tournaments without reason, Azarenka is tough enough both mentally and physically to sustain high level tennis even with such an injury, especially in a Grand Slam. That's why I expect her to do her utmost best to be recover in time for her clash with Italian Flavia Pennetta on Wednesday. 

"I still have to do some more check-ups to make sure," she said. "I will still have some tests today to cover every single possibility, but I still need to make the final assessments. It's good to have tomorrow so I can recover." 

I am proud she didn't give up today, she remained calm, played it smart and gave herself another shot at the title. You go Vika! Show them who's the best player in the world! #letsdothis

For a few minutes it looked like Vika's Wimbledon campaign would be over before it began, as the Belorussian injured her knee in a nasty fall during her first round match. She sucked in the pain and carried on the dispute, eventually overcoming Portuguese Maria Joao Koehler 6-1,6-2 to make the second round.

photos (top-down): AP, GETTY IMAGES (x3)