Lauren Davis Must Build off Upset of Victoria Azarenka at Indian Wells

A major part of the development process of young players is learning how to bounce back from an emotional win. Lauren Davis finds herself in that position right now after upsetting Victoria Azarenka in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open.

The 20-year-old American knocked off the No. 4 player in the world in straight sets (7-0, 7-6) on Friday. Davis entered the week ranked 66th in the WTA rankings and had never beaten a player ranked inside the Top 25, let alone the Top Five.

Now, as the tournament's official Twitter feed noted, the search for that first marquee win is over:

It's important to note that Azarenka wasn't at her best. The two-time major champion was making her return from a foot injury and struggled to move around the court with any level of fluidity. She made it more competitive in the second set, but just didn't have enough in the tank to turn the match around.

Courtney Nguyen of Sports Illustrated provided comments Azarenka made after the loss in which she said making her return before getting back to full strength probably wasn't the right course of action:

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I don't know. I wanted to play this tournament. I wanted to see how it is, because at some point you've got to test it. You know, thinking now, it might have been too early. But I wouldn't know if I didn't try.

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Douglas Robson of USA Today pointed out the ability to hold her nerve during the final points:

How she responds following the triumph is key.

As mentioned, it's not a simple task to score a career highlight and then try to come back a couple days later to play another match. Players have to press the reset button to end that emotional high, which is something that comes with experience.

Davis did show signs of growth by making the third round of the Australian Open. It continued the trend of steady progress after a solid junior career. But there's plenty of work left to do.

Next up in Indian Wells is a match against fellow American Varvara Lepchenko. They played once before, with Lepchenko scoring a straight-sets victory in Memphis two years ago. Davis should be more equipped to challenge this time around, if she can keep those emotions in check.

In reality, this part of the draw is now wide open with the third seed out. It's a perfect opportunity for Davis to build off the Azarenka win and make a deep run in one of the biggest events on the tour outside of the Grand Slams.

The biggest key is continuing to put up a fight in most return games. Her serve isn't much of a weapon at this stage—she won just 55 percent of first-serve points against a limping Azarenka—but she also generated 11 break points and converted seven of them.

There aren't any dominant servers in her section over the next two rounds, so the opportunity is there for her to win a couple more matches by relying on the return.

Davis should be riding a wave of confidence after beating Azarenka. Now it's time to see whether she's ready to take that next step and build off it or is still working toward that type of success.

The future is bright for the American, but exactly how far into the future it will be until she asserts herself as a threat on big stages is a question mark. It could get answered this week.