Victoria Azarenka of Belarus holds the trophy during the victory ceremony for the women's singles final against Maria Sharapova of Russia at the 2012 China Open tennis tournament held in Beijing, capital of China, on Oct. 7, 2012. Azarenka won 2-0 and claimed the title. (Xinhua/Li Wen)
BEIJING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- China Open witnessed a new female champion this year as Victoria Azarenka easily cruised past the world top two contest by smashing Maria Sharapova on 6-3 and 6-1 here on Sunday.
"I rely on a good tactics today and force the opponent make lots of errors by disrupting her rhythm," said Azarenka, who was thought tough this evening in Sharapova' s eyes.
"I made many mistakes and she was very aggressive, especially in my serve, which leave in a very passive situation," Sharapova said.
Although having reached a career Grand Slam by winning Roland Garros this year, Maria Sharapova, the 10th women all-time and 6th in the Open Era, failed to bid for her first Premier Mandatory title by suffering a quick loss to the World No.1 Victoria Azarenka.
Standing on the top in her 4th appearance at Beijing, Azarenka grabbed her fifth title of the season, which is her career first more-than-three titles in a season and the 23-year-old Belorussian enjoyed a 7-5 advantage against Sharapova.
Neither player has dropped a set en route to the final as Azarenka has dropped 21 games and Sharapova 20, but the final didn' t turn out to be a close match-up as Azarenka led a 68% to 57% first serve points won percentage and a higher 50%-29% second.
Azarenka enjoyed a decent start with 4-0 by breaking Sharapova' s first and third serve in the opening set before the second seed closed it on 3-5 as the world No.1 answered another break to take the set at 6-3 within 42 minutes.
With one set in hand, Azarenka started to call the shots in the second to storm to a 5-1 lead, while the Russian sweet found it hard to get the match back as Azarenka sealed the victory at 6-1.
