Dubai: Former top-notch junior Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is hoping she can turn on the heat on her more established opponents and start fulfilling her potential on the women’s tennis tour.
Twice junior champion at the Australian Open [2006 and 2007] and once at the US Open [2006], Pavlyuchenkova had a successful career as a junior. However, her career on the big stage did not see the 26-year-old Russian live up to her potential with her best-ever ranking standing at No. 13 in July 2011.
To her credit, Pavlyuchenkova has made it to the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slams so far and her best season possibly came last year when she claimed three WTA titles [Monterrey, Rabat and Hong Kong]. “Besides the winning, I think I stayed pretty consistent in my performance,” Pavlyuchenkova admitted.
“I feel that this year has to be at least the same, if not better. But these sorts of things really don’t happen especially when you end up with such draws against the top players so early in the competition. I was too close to finishing top-10 last season. I wasn’t too far and hopefully I can make it one day as I am working hard towards achieving this,” she added.
The Russian also added that she doesn’t believe in setting goals. “I don’t really like to set up any goals. This is a tough sport and every match counts. All I want to say is that it’s tough to keep healthy and play all the time and try and improve every aspect of the game all the time during practice,” she said.
“Getting more consistency in my game would definitely be one huge aspiration here,” she added.
On Saturday, Pavlyuchenkova was drawn to play Great Britain’s Johanna Konta, one of the four players receiving wild card entry this year. “This is a really tough draw. I feel I am in a tougher draw as compared to the upper half. But then each year it is tough to play here as it attracts some of the best players. I didn’t expect any easy rounds,” Pavlyuchenkova said.
“She [Konta] is seeded and she is tough. She had a fantastic 2017 where she finished in the top-10. So it is going to be tough, but I will be trying my best. I am ready for the challenge,” she added.
“I always want to go as far as I can on the Tour. I plan to have the best beginning of my season. It’s nice to have some wins in my pocket and just start the year strong and it would be great if I am able to go far into this tournament,” she stressed.
