{"id":22098,"date":"2013-08-23T13:45:41","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T11:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/azarenka-looking-to-dethrone-williams-at-us-open\/"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:45:41","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T11:45:41","slug":"azarenka-looking-to-dethrone-williams-at-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/azarenka-looking-to-dethrone-williams-at-us-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Azarenka looking to dethrone Williams at US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/williams-cruises-to-victory-in-rogers-cup-final\/462093-130812-serena-williams\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13205\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-13205 \" alt=\"Serena Williams serves to Sorana Cirstea in the quick-fire final in Toronto. Photo: AP\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/b69ec_462093-130812-serena-williams-600x337.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Serena Williams serves to Sorana Cirstea in the quick-fire final in Toronto. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p>World number one Serena Williams enters the US Open as a heavy favourite to defend her title, but second-ranked Victoria Azarenka leads a host of rivals looking to dethrone her.<\/p>\n<p>Williams is seeking her 17th Grand Slam singles crown and fifth US Open title, which would move her one shy of Chris Evert\u2019s Open-era record for most titles at the year\u2019s final major event on the Flushing Meadows hardcourts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m definitely prepared. I\u2019m definitely ready for New York,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI definitely had more matches than I could want, but I\u2019m definitely prepared for the US Open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old American has been on an amazing run over the past 14 months, going 77-4 and capturing last year\u2019s Wimbledon, London Olympic and US Open titles, plus this year\u2019s French Open crown.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/azarenka-wins-battle-with-williams-to-win-wta-cincinnati-open\/\" target=\"_blank\">But two of those defeats came at the hands of Azarenka, in last February\u2019s Doha final and last Sunday at the WTA final in Cincinnati<\/a> by a score of 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (8\/6).<\/p>\n<p>It was only the third victory for the 24-year-old from Belarus over Williams but with the two having won seven of the past nine Grand Slam titles, it sets the stage for a potential rematch of last year\u2019s US Open final.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be totally different circumstances,\u201d said Williams, who also beat Azarenka in this year\u2019s Rome final. \u201cIt\u2019s just a new event. You just got to go in there with a fresh mind.\u201d \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myrepublica.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Agence France Presse<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more Serena Williams news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/serena-williams\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/033ad_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serena Williams serves to Sorana Cirstea in the quick-fire final in Toronto. Photo: AP World number one Serena Williams enters the US Open as a heavy favourite to defend her title, but second-ranked Victoria Azarenka leads a host of rivals looking to dethrone her. Williams is seeking her 17th Grand Slam singles crown and fifth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-22098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}