Tennis has a new queen as world number one Victoria Azarenka extends her 2012 unbeaten streak to 23-0

I had all but lost interest in women’s tennis the past couple of years with the Williams sisters mostly out of commission. I hadn’t heard of most of the winners of the grand slam tournaments and there seemed to be a different one each time. Samantha Stosur one tournament then Li Na the next. Who? Then there was Petra Kivitova and Francesca Schiavone. Again, who? The only familiar face has been Kim Clijsters who was able to take nearly four years off, have a baby, then come back and win the 2009 US Open in just her second tournament back. She won the US Open again the next year and the Australian Open last year but didn’t otherwise dominate spending only a couple of weeks last year ranked number one.

Meanwhile, the player who held the number one ranking for much of the past two years was Caroline Wozniacki who couldn’t manage to win ANY of the grand slam tournaments making it to only one final back in 2009.

It seemed like the women’s game was due to rehaul its ranking system and desperately needed something, or someone, to come along and rescue it from this chaos.

Someone has arrived and her name is Victoria Azarenka!

She won the Australian Open in January and took over the number one ranking in the process from the struggling Wozniacki. But instead of choking away the ranking under the newfound pressure, Azarenka has just kept on winning including a 6-2, 6-3 victory earlier today over Maria Sharapova in the finals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

It is Azarenka’s fourth tournament victory of the season and her 23rd consecutive win. She has had the best start to the year for any player since Martina Hingis won 37 straight in 1997.

“I never dreamed about that,” Azarenka said of her perfect start to the season. “It’s amazing. I just really focused on every match at a time. I’m not thinking too much ahead.”

At 22, Azarenka is at the peak of her powers and her attractive appearance should help reignite the women’s game should she be able to continue her dominance.