ROME (Reuters) – Victoria Azarenka produced a masterclass on centre court at the Italian Open to knock out third seed Sofia Kenin with a dominant 6-0 6-0 victory in the second round on Thursday.
Azarenka, who lost the U.S. Open final in New York on Saturday and flew in to Rome to beat Venus Williams in a two-hour first-round match on Wednesday, needed only an hour to dispatch the reigning Australian Open champion.
American Kenin, who received a bye into the second round, had no answers to Azarenka’s consistency from the baseline and made a string of errors, finishing the match with 22 unforced errors while Azarenka made only four.
Kenin did not create a single opportunity to break the 31-year-old Belarusian while Azarenka won an overwhelming 89% of her first serve points at the Foro Italico while converting six of 11 break points.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
