Victoria Azarenka entered the final of the Australian Open 2012 by defeating Kim Clijsters on Thursday.
Clijsters was knocked out of the Australian Open in the semi-finals, going down to Azarenka, in a tough three-setter.
The Belgian defending champion had come into the tournament without too many matches under her belt but defeated both, Li Na and Caroline Wozniacki on her way to the semi-finals. However, against Azarenka, she failed to reproduce that form and went down 6-4 1-6 6-3.
Azarenka admitted later that she was nervous serving for the match and said, “I felt like my hands were about 200kg and I my body was about 1000kg. I can't believe it's over. I just want to cry.”
The Belarus lady needed 49 minutes to win the first set before Clijsters came back strongly to take the second set 6-1.
The win propelled Azarenka into her first ever Grand Slam final.
Azarenka had 20 winners and 40 unforced errors going for her while Clijsters got 26 winners but conceded 44 unforced errors. She served up a double-fault at the match-point but Clijsters’ error towards the end, won the number three seed the match.
The third-seed Aazarenka will now play in Saturday's Australian Open final where she takes on the winner of the match between Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova.
