Victoria Azarenka: From The Players Box

Posted: Jan 02, 2016

BRISBANE, Australia – Victoria Azarenka isn’t just one of the top women’s tennis players in the world – two Grand Slam titles, former World No.1, Olympic bronze – she’s also one of the sport’s most open and honest players, never hesitating to tell it like it is and give us a deeper glimpse into tennis life.

And a deeper glimpse is exactly what she’s going to bring us – monthly – in her new column on SI.com called From The Players Box by Victoria Azarenka. She’s written two pieces so far, the first coming after she had to prematurely wrap up her 2015 season due to injury in November and the second one coming on New Year’s Eve – in it she talks about how she’s rebounding from a nagging foot injury.

“I’ve had a problem in my foot for as long as I can remember. Because of this pain that the injury has given me over time, I changed the movement of my foot. I forgot how to plant and push off my foot the right way because I was always overcompensating for the pain. The correct way to change direction is to push off from your heel to the middle of your foot and then push off from there and through your toes. I didn’t have this movement in my repertoire any longer. So the challenge for the off-season was to learn this movement from scratch and try to re-program my body to do it properly going forward.”

And then, a declaration. “But here is the catch: I’m not trying to get back to where I used to be,” she writes. “I am here to push myself to become better, to get to where I have never been before.”

Coming from someone who has, according to most experts, been the closest challenger over the last three years to Serena Williams, who’s won eight of the last 14 majors and held No.1 for 150 weeks in a row, that resonates. Azarenka was also the last player other than Williams to top the WTA Rankings.

The two-time Australian Open champion’s quest for perfection has upsides and downsides, though.

“I am getting stronger every day and I am slowly starting to feel a little bit of satisfaction. I’m very happy with my effort of doing a lot of physical work off the court, but to be honest, I am still dissatisfied with the outcome on the tennis court so far. My effort is there every single day, at 100%. But I know it takes patience for the off-court work to transition into tennis results. After a while, I am starting to get that feeling I’ve missed for so long! That feeling of being in control on the court. That feeling of being in full control of myself, that’s what I long for. But by the time it all starts again down under, I will be ready!”

Read Azarenka’s full piece – and watch the very cool footwork videos that go along with it – here.

And keep an eye on wtatennis.com this week as she plays her first WTA event of the year, the Brisbane International. Unseeded in the draw, she’ll open against an as-of-yet unknown qualifier.