It turned out to be the mother of all battles and Victoria Azarenka produced some telling blows in an electrifying contest but in the end she lacked the chutzpah to prevent Elina Svitolina from securing a place in the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Sunday's 2-6 6-4 7-6 win handed the Ukrainian wildcard a first victory over Azarenka -- the duo being the last two mums left standing out of the six who started in the singles draw -- as she snapped a five-match losing run against the Belarusian.
Bizarrely, the crowd booed Azarenka as she left the court, obviously not realising the reason why the Belarusian did not offer Svitolina the obligatory post match handshake. There were nothing but roaring cheers for Svitolina, who summed up her achievement by saying: "After giving birth to our daughter, this is the second happiest moment in my life."
Even though the records will show the Belarusian romped through the first set by breaking twice, those in attendance will know that the scoreline failed to illustrate just how much drama was packed into those first 41 minutes of the contest.Azarenka may have thought she was on the home stretch when she opened up a 2-0 lead in the second set but two games later Svitolina finally punched a hole through her opponent's rock solid serve to break for the first time.
Seconds later she had levelled the contest after Azarenka swiped a forehand long to surrender her serve.
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