Though I’ve steered away from the evaluative year-end posts, it’s been interesting to see the general consensus on the best matches of 2010. While it is pretty obvious which men’s match tops the list (Isner and Mahut, duh), the women’s vote has been a lot trickier due to the fact that there haven’t been too many great matches this year. Many ended up settling with Serena Williams’ defeat of Justine Henin at the Australian Open final. I do see the argument behind picking this match; obviously they are two of the three best players of this generation (yeah, now isn’t the time to be getting into a Justine vs Venus debate), they are massive rivals, it was gripping, absorbing, and the first Women’s 3-set slam final in 97 years. But even so, I feel that though there were numerous moments of brilliance from both players, the quality of play was patchy and inconsistent, and for that reason, it cannot be classed as the match of 2010.

My nomination would, without a doubt, be the quarterfinal match at that very tournament between Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams. I don’t know how Vika has managed to amass so much bad karma to be drawn against Serena Williams so many times at the Australian Open, but over the last few years, she has landed herself in Serena’s tiny section of the draw so many times. In 2008 she was aced 15 times by Serena in a straight sets match that didn’t last much longer than an hour, and in 2009 she was forced to withdraw with heat exhaustion after taking the first set from her. So going into their 2010 quarterfinal, she had plenty of reason to be angry and determined to play her best tennis.

And she did. She came out onto the court all guns blazing – placing her typically weak serve well, attacking fearlessly off the ground and finishing most points at the net. Her play for the first set and a half was categorically flawless. That backhand… Easily one of the top five backhands in the world, it showed us all exactly way that day. Serena, though sluggish, wasn’t even particularly bad -- she was just being completely outclassed. The first set came and went, and before anyone knew it, Victoria was up 6-4 4-0 and two games away from bageling the then-four time champion.

At this point, quite literally any other player in history would have gone on to lose the match. Vika was not in the mood for choking, and she continued to play at an unwaveringly high level. The only way to beat her would be to pry the match away from her death grip. But that’s exactly what Serena did. The turning point was at 0-4 on Serena’s serve. The game dragged on to several deuces, and with some inspired passing shots and a couple of titanic rallies, Serena toughed out the game and her trademark confidence and self-belief slowly began to seep back into her game. Suddenly her serve was beginning to fire more frequently, she was moving better, she was hitting the ball cleaner, she was making more returns and looking to be aggressive off them – she was a new player. Azarenka did her best to stay close to Serena by bravely fighting to take the match into the tiebreak, and for a while the pair found themselves in a massive scuffle with some blistering and long rallies won by both, but Serena continued to improve and eventually took the second set 7-6(4).

The final set saw Serena hit full stride – acing and hitting return winners at will, but no matter whose side you were on, you had to feel sorry for Victoria. She would have murdered almost any other player in two easy sets that day, yet all she could do was stand there and watch as ball after ball flew past her. An amazing match.