Behind Victoria Azarenka lies a difficult season. In the Off Season, the two-time Australian Open winner now dared to go on ice.
New York is always worth a visit – even or especially in the pre-Christmas period. This is what Victoria Azarenka thought in her Off Season and combined her visit to the Big Apple with a very special coaching session. The Belarusian, who has a residence in Manhattan Beach just outside L.A., was the one who needed good advice this time.
The former world number one Azarenka let herself be initiated into the secrets of skating on the Wollman Rink, the famous ice rink in the southern part of Central Park. And none other than the former British ice dancer Sinead Kerr. The two-time European Championship third in pairs and two-time Olympic participant lives most of the year in New Jersey – and gladly accepted the challenge.
One thing is certain: “Vika” and her “trainer” had fun during the action in the freezing cold NYC. “I’m pretty sure her skating is better than my tennis,” Kerr (40) wrote to her Instagram Mail.
Actually Azarenka has a special relation to ice. When she went to the USA as a teenager to advance her tennis career, she found shelter in Scottsdale with the family of the former Russian NHL keeper Nikolai Khabibulin.
Azarenka’s mother, Alla, and her husband’s wife were close friends. Khabibulin played for the Phoenix Coyotes, the Tampa Bay Lightnings and the Chicago Blackhawks in the world’s most famous ice hockey league.
Azarenka, who finished the year number 51 in the WTA rankings, looks back on a mixed season. After a custody dispute over her now almost two-year-old son Leo and a month-long forced break, the 29-year-old did not return to the tour until March 2018.
Although she reached the semi-finals at her second tournament in Miami, she failed to make it through to the final – especially at the Grand Slam events: In Paris the two-time Major winner failed in the first round, in Wimbledon in the second round and in Flushing Meadows in the third round.
Azarenka will start the new tennis year with former Kerber coach Wim Fissette, both trained a few weeks ago in the academy of Nick Bollettieri in Bradenton/Florida. The Belgian Fissette had already looked after her once in 2015/2016, until the right-handed woman from Minsk had to take a break because of her pregnancy.