US Open 2012: Who will go for the kill - Vika or Serena?

So who is it going to be – Serena or Azarenka? Predicting this one is tangibly difficult. Both of these players have come into the final with a stellar display of tennis, right throughout the Open, which makes it even more difficult to foretell a straight, cut-and-dried winner.

And for the winner, there is definitely a lot at stake. Azarenka’s consistency may have guaranteed her number one status, but the Belarusian wouldn’t mind winning her second grand slam title and her first – incidentally – as the world’s best player amongst the women. And does she deserve it? Yes, totally. Azarenka’s ascendancy to the top of the women’s rankings has quelled a lot of questions about a grand-slam winning performer making it to the crest and sustaining it for as long as possible. With an almost 30-match win streak following her Australian Open dream run, Azarenka has defied critiques and cynicism to power her way to where she is today.

A tough competitor and a methodical player, Azarenka’s focus during the match is impenetrable and if anyone possesses the ability to potentially counter-act Serena’s powerful ground-strokes, it’s her. Barring two matches – one against the defending champion Samantha Stosur and the other against Maria Sharapova – her on-court dismantling of each of her opponents has been so ruthless, it seems effortless. And even in these two three-set matches that she has played, her performances through the match been completely different. Where against the Australian, she appeared to have lost her focus for a bit midway in the second set, she suffered from no lack of concentration as she destroyed the Russian in the second and third set.

Against the American, it’s this ability to pick up any slack, rising at any point of time that’ll help Azarenka. Squaring off against Serena Williams at any tournament is a tough situation and more so, while playing her at the slams. Mentally strong and physically formidable, Serena doesn’t come out as a weakling and even when cornered, possesses the ability to fire out sizzling shots. Even before the start of the tournament, Serena was touted as the favourite to win the Open by many. Azarenka, by comparison, has made her first final appearance at the US Open final – her best performance this far – and has nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Not her reputation or her ranking, but something indefinably much more, something that’ll endear her to her fans even more than what she means to them at the moment.

By contrasts, Serena has seen it all at the Open. Applauds and flaks, awards and fines; she’s been a recipient at both ends, many times over. She has powered her way through her first six matches, absolutely clinical and utterly deadly. But where Serena’s game isn’t exactly vulnerable, it’s her attitude and demeanor that needs to be watched out for.

Probably in her defence, compared to her abrasive conduct in the 2011 US Open finals, while Serena does seem to have mellowed down considerably this year, her demeanor at this year’s final is an important factor to consider. For the past two years in this very tournament, her attitudinal harshness has resulted in the loss of her points, with several umpiring decisions going against her for the same reason. Keeping a calm mind alongside playing her natural aggressive game will be a pivotal aspect for Serena to go for the kill in the final.

For many sports players, age is just a number instead of being the most important factor governing their professional, playing life. Such sportsmen are ageless and the more one watches them, they seem to get just better and better. To many, Serena Williams justifies this ageless wonder. She is as dominating in the women’s tennis playing world, as she was a decade ago. She’s as hungry to win more slams, as she was to get started in the numbers game, a few years ago. Opponents have come and gone, peers have retired and settled but for Serena, it’s still about tennis – not more, not less but just perfectly right.

Thus ultimately, the women’s singles final boils down to this – the thirst to go beyond personal bests and unequivocally rule women’s tennis or the hunger to power one’s way to record books, not infamously but famously as only legends can come.