The Centre Court had an intriguing glimpse into the future today when Victoria Azarenka faced Sorana Cirstea for a place in the third round.

These two 19-year-olds may have been new faces to many at Wimbledon but to each other they are very familiar, having jousted many times on their way through the junior rankings. But Azarenka’s six months’ seniority counts for a lot at this level and after a tight first set her extra experience showed as she won 7-6 (7-2), 6-3.

Azarenka and Cirstea are joined by another fact – each produced the best Grand Slam performance of their careers at Roland Garros this month by making the quarter-finals. And at senior level these two have a habit already of meeting in Slams. At Roland Garros last year Belarusian Azarenka achieved the dreaded “double bagel” (6-0, 6-0) over Cirstea and one month later at Wimbledon, the Romanian managed just four games in defeat.

This first meeting of 2009 was very different. No quarter was given in the first set, and it was clearly about who would blink first. Azarenka’s first serve was formidable. Break points were few and shared almost evenly, but both players held their games together and it stayed on serve.

But what emerged clearly – as always when Azarenka is on court – is her signature combative nature. Not only did she routinely rebuke herself, making no attempt to disguise any thought going through her mind, but she hit the ball with every stroke as if she wished to blow it to smithereens.

For as long as Cirstea kept returning it, which she did, Azarenka’s frustration grew – and with it her trademark shriek, which reduces Maria Sharapova’s grunt to a murmur by comparison.

As often happens, the crowd soon tired of it and began overtly to support her opponent. Azarenka has not only seen all this before but tends actively to thrive on it. If a crowd dislikes her, she can seem to abhor them right back.

Certainly by the time they reached the tiebreak there was no doubting who the Centre Court crowd favoured. But that was just the moment when a couple of Cirstea errors tipped the balance Azarenka’s way, and then the Belarusian brought up four set points with a fabulous crosscourt passing shot. A hammer volley snatched the set.

In the second set Cirstea had a chance to break in the first game but it went away from her. Thereafter Azarenka’s relentless baseline superiority began to emerge more clearly.

She broke at the first opportunity and stretched away to win, greeted by what can only be described as tepid applause from the crowd. It was the first time the Centre Court had witnessed a match between these two, but it will surely not be the last.

Azarenka will face Nadia Petrova on Monday for a place in the quarter-finals.

Sorana continues at Wimbledon in the doubles competition where she partners with Caroline Wozniacki. The pair won their first round match against Shuai Peng/Su-Wei Hsieh 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

source: wimbledon.org (partial)

Take the third round of this year’s French Open for example, when she took on Caroline Wozniacki. “Caroline is my best friend,” said the 19-year-old from Bucharest. “We do everything together. Sometimes I have trouble leaving my emotions out of my game – it’s hard to forget that when you step on the court.”

It may have been hard, but she most certainly did leave her emotions in the locker room, squeezing past the Dane 7-6 (7-3), 7-5. Wozniacki was one of three seeds whom she beat on her way to the quarter-finals. Alize Cornet was dispatched in the second round and before she claimed the scalp of Jelena Jankovic in the last 16. That three-set epic , which she won 9-7, in the decider thrust her into the general sporting consciousness for the first time.

Cirstea was 14 when adidas approached her and helped her take her first steps on the ITF circuit, but since then she has gone on to re-write her country’s history books. Ruxandra Dragomir was the last Romanian to reach the final of a WTA event, in 2000, which Cirstea emulated at s’Hertogenbosch in 2007, while her appearance in the last eight at Roland Garros also equalled Dragomir’s performance in 1997.

This week, she has again put sentiment to one side to eliminate a close friend from a Grand Slam tournament. After going deep at Eastbourne in the Wimbledon warm-up tournament, Sania Mirza did not have time to re-pack her suitcases before making the short journey north to London SW19, so it was her pal Sorana who stepped into the breach and leant her the necessary clothing – before unceremoniously dumping her out of The Championships in the second round on Wednesday.

Today, the No.28 seed is facing Victoria Azarenka who, despite being the same age as Cirstea, is 19 places above her in the world and defeated her in their two meetings to date, dropping only four games in the process – a 6-1, 6-3 success here last year and a “double bage” (6-0, 6-0) prior to that at the French.

Unfortunately for the Romanian, she and Azarenka have never played doubles together – otherwise she would no doubt have relished the opportunity to send yet another friend crashing out of the tournament.

source: wimbledon.org

“We are really good friends. We’re one of those very few who actually stay in touch even when we’re not on the tour,” Mirza said two days ago, after wining her first round match.

Sania also talked about a little dare going on between them:

“We were joking about it just before. If I didn’t have any clothes and said ‘can you please give me some clothes to wear’. “She said ‘yes, I’ll give it to you’. And I said ‘yes, but if you win and I win, I play you, I’ll need clothes as well!’. And she said ‘I’ll still give it to you!’.

“We both have enough kit now. I don’t need to borrow stuff from her now!” world No. 85 Mirza said.

“We’re both going to try our best, obviously. You have to make a conscious effort to put a line because you are friends,” the 22-year-old said, looking forward to the match.
“When you go on court you are just rivals and opponents and when you go off court you’re friends again.

Sorana won a set of clothes from Sania today in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. They are off the court now and back to being friends again. Sorana will now play Victoria Azarenka who defeated another Romanian, Raluca Olaru 6-0, 6-0.  Sorana and Victoria played twice before in last year’s Wimbledon and French Open, Victoria winning both matches.

Match Summary

First set: Edina wins 4 straight games and leads 4-0. Sorana wins her first service game 4-1. Sorana breaks and then wins her service 4-4. They each win their next three service games 5-4, then Sorana breaks and wins the first set 7-5.
Second set: Sorana breaks for 3-1 and then keeps on winning every game and goes on to win the second set 6-1 and the match 7-5, 6-1.
Next match: In the second round, Sorana will play Sania Mirza. They never played each other before. Sorana is also playing doubles this year together with her friend Caroline Wozniacki.

Good luck Sorana!