Belarus tennis ace Victoria Azarenka (pic) was more refined than former Australian cricketer Keith Miller when it came to dismissing concerns about pressure in sport, but the sentiment was similar.
Miller, a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War Two, famously quipped that pressure was being chased by a German fighter plane not playing Test cricket.
Yesterday, after reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open in the shadow of the cricket ground where Miller once plied his trade, twice champion Azarenka was quick to dismiss any concerns she was feeling the weight of expectation.
“Pressure is if you don’t win some tournaments you have absolutely no opportunity to go to any other,” she said after her confident 6-1, 6-1 win over Japanese teenager Naomi Osaka.
“If you’re not the best you don’t get sponsored. I had no money. I didn’t get to eat. So that was pressure to survive,” she said of her days in the junior ranks. “So pressure right now is go out there and face a big opponent? Okay.
“But when you’re hungry and you’ve got to go play and you have absolutely nothing, that’s big pressure.”
The Belarusian’s new attitude to life and sport has come about after two years of battling injury and depression, which was exacerbated by the breakdown of a relationship with American singer Redfoo.
Such were the personal demons the 26-year-old was battling she said she was ready to give up the game after a quarter-final exit at the 2014 US Open. “I didn’t feel good about myself. I have said that many times that I had a person (ask) me, ‘are you depressed?’ I said, ‘no’.
“Because you don’t allow, as an athlete, you don’t really allow weaknesses to show. And then I realised, ‘yes, I am’. It started a process for me to adjust.
“It’s not easy. Obviously it took me over a year to be able to control all that. I had a lot of changes and emotions from last year that I still didn’t know how to handle.
“One of my best friends in Belarus, he pushed me. I called him one time, I said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’.
“He said, ‘you have to. You’re this close. You’ve got to push through’.”
That advice has helped Azarenka produce some irrepressible form at Melbourne Park, having conceded only five games in her march to the last 16. She also won the Brisbane International earlier this month, her first title since 2013.
She added that she was happy with the way she was playing at the moment. “I’m pretty happy with the way I’m playing. I just want to still keep improving from match to match, because it’s only getting harder from here,” she said, revealing she hit the practice court immediately after the match.
“I wanted to work on couple of things. So looking for progression, it’s definitely part of my mindset after any match,” Azarenka added.
Azarenka said part of her intensity and focus on court came from thriving on big-match pressure, a trait that should serve her well the deeper she goes in the tournament.
“I love it, I embrace it. Pressure for me, I think it’s part of where I came from. I always had pressure,” said the 27-year-old, who grew up in Minsk, adding that she had also worked on using her nerves to her advantage.
“Don’t tell me nobody as an athlete isn’t nervous before the match,” she said. “It’s just what you do for the nerves. Do you use them for your advantage and hype you up and use that adrenaline to your power, or use it to close in and not to do anything?”
The combination was too much for Japan’s 18-year-old Osaka, who has a Haitian father and has lived most of her life in the United States, and barely speaks Japanese.
She turned heads after coolly working her way past 18th seed Elina Svitolina in the second round, but the learning curve was too steep for the world number 127 against the accomplished Azarenka.
Against the odds, Osaka broke to love in the first game, causing gasps from the crowd who had only just witnessed Muguruza’s upset by Strycova.
But it was a minor hiccup for the Belarusian who, grunting at full volume, quickly recovered and evened up the match when Osaka sent a double-handed backhand wide.
Azarenka was just warming up and she began turning on the style with some blistering forehands and effective net work to break again in the fourth game and again in the seventh.
Osaka, who was born in the city of the same name but moved to New York as a young child, could only watch and learn from a player peaking at the right time as Azarenka wrapped up the set with a drive volley.
Azarenka remained in control in the second set and she broke the Japanese teen’s first service game and held before Osaka finally won another game, earning generous applause from the crowd. However it was one-way traffic from there as Azarenka raced to an easy win in less than an hour.
Nicknamed “Vika” and renowned in the past for fiery on-court outbursts, Azarenka won the tournament in 2012 and defended the following year at what is her most successful Grand Slam.
She next plays unseeded Czech Barbora Strycova, who earlier tore the bottom half of the draw wide open by dumping third seed Garbine Muguruza out of the tournament, but the 2012 and 2013 champion was not taking anything for granted.
“She’s a very tricky opponent,” Azarenka said. “It’s never easy. You never know what’s going to come.”