Anna Blinkova joined the record – Sport – Kommersant

The winner of the Transylvania Open by Verdino, a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 250 tournament with a prize pool of $250,000, was Anna Blinkova, who outplayed Italian Jasmine Paolini in three sets. Thus, the 24-year-old Muscovite won her first title and made a sharp jump in the world ranking, rising from 138th place to 80th. Meanwhile, the number of WTA tournaments won by Russians this season has increased to nine, which is a record for 2022.

Anna Blinkova’s breakthrough in Cluj-Napoca, the last WTA tournament of the 250 category this season, seemed to have no obvious prerequisites. Rather, on the contrary, everything went to the fact that this Russian woman, who in 2015 reached the finals of the junior Wimbledon, and a couple of years ago seemed to be entrenched in the top hundred of the world rankings, would finish quite far beyond it for the second season in a row. And suddenly – an unexpected and unconditional success. After qualifying and then beating several fairly well-known rivals in the main draw, including Ukrainian Angelina Kalinina and Russian Anastasia Potapova, who recently made it to the top 50, Blinkova reached the final, where she met the owner of one WTA title, 67th racket of the world, Italian Jasmine Paolini. And she didn’t leave this short (160 cm) girl any chances in the third set, having won in 1 hour 41 minutes – 6:2, 3:6, 6:2.

Until today, the highlight of Blinkova’s tennis life was the victory won in the second round of Roland Garros 2019 over the famous Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia, the current tenth racket of the world. Now, in her collection of her achievements, the WTA title, won under the guidance of little-known French coach Xavier Pujo, has appeared. By the way, there were quite a few coaches in Blinkova’s still relatively short career.

A few years ago, it was believed that the Russian woman lacked aggressiveness, but now she plays very modern, active tennis, which looked very attractive against the backdrop of Paolini’s classic defensive game.

The Romanian triumph will allow Anna Blinkova to sharply improve her position in the rankings. From 138th place, it will rise immediately to 80th, which is fundamentally important. The fact is that now Blinkova will directly fall into the main draw of the January Australian Open, avoiding the need to participate in qualifications.

There is another circumstance that is simply impossible not to pay attention to. The number of titles won by Russian women in WTA tournaments this season has increased to nine. Three of them were won by Lyudmila Samsonova, Daria Kasatkina and Ekaterina Alexandrova won two each, Anastasia Potapova and Anna Blinkova won one each.

Yes, almost all the competitions in which Russian tennis players excelled are far from the ten most significant WTA tournaments in terms of prestige.

But nevertheless, the fact remains: it is already impossible even theoretically to improve their record, and representatives of Poland can repeat it – more precisely, one of them, the first racket of the world, Iga Sventek, who has seven titles this year. To do this, she needs to win in San Diego tonight, Moscow time, and then win the final tournament in Fort Worth (Texas).

Evgeny Fedyakov