Russians will compete for titles at two WTA tournaments

Two Russian athletes will take part in the finals of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments this coming weekend. In Tokyo, at the Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis, a representative competition in the 500 category with a prize fund of $780 thousand, either Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or Veronika Kudermetova will compete in the decisive stage. They will meet in the semi-finals after Kudermetova defeated world number two, Poland’s Iga Szwiatek, in three sets in the quarter-finals. And in Ningbo, China, where $260 thousand is up for grabs at the 250 category tournament, 19-year-old Diana Schneider sensationally reached the final match.

This week, quite unexpectedly, is turning out to be one of the most successful in the history of Russian tennis. We excelled on Tuesday Karen Khachanov, who won the title in Zhuhai, and Roman Safiullin, who for the first time in his career played the final of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournament in Chengdu. And now their compatriots are in the spotlight at two Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) competitions.

In Tokyo at the Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis, one of the most important competitions of the autumn WTA Asian series, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Veronika Kudermetova will compete for reaching the finals. The most experienced Pavlyuchenkova, who in the winter, due to a break due to a knee injury, fell back into the ninth hundred in the WTA rankings, but returned and reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, continues to gain momentum. In Tokyo, she dealt with the 20th racket of the world, Croatian Donna Vekic, promising Czech Linda Noskova and Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, as a result of which she came close to the sixth ten of the world classification. Kudermetova solves other problems. Having finished last season in the top 10, she, on the contrary, has recently experienced a decline. It was partly due to injuries, but now that period seems to be behind us. At the US Open and the recent tournament in Guadalajara, Kudermetova was temporarily assisted by Dmitry Tursunov, under whose leadership several strong tennis players have made clear progress in recent years.

And although Tursunov did not come to Tokyo (the question of continuing their cooperation, according to Kommersant, remains open), Veronika Kudermetova looks very cool there.

After completing two rounds, for the first time she defeated an extremely difficult opponent for herself, the recent world ranking leader, Poland’s Iga Szwiatek, to whom she had easily lost all four previous matches.

The statistics for this quarter-final look strange. In total, the opponents made 85 unforced errors, winning just 19 points with blowouts. But there is an explanation for this. After a series of failures during the American series, including a defeat in the fourth round of the US Open, Swiatek is now clearly not as confident in herself as, for example, at the victorious Roland Garros. And Kudermetova was forced to take a lot of risks simply because of her usual style, based on total pressure. Be that as it may, the victory over such a famous opponent – 6:2, 2:6, 6:4 – became Kudermetova’s loudest success since reaching the final at the grass tournament in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in June. As for the semi-final against Pavlyuchenkova, the chances are approximately equal. This, in particular, is evidenced by the draw (2:2) in personal meetings, which between these tennis players always turn out to be tense.

The other pair of semi-finalists in Tokyo were two representatives of the world elite – American Jessica Pegula and Greek Maria Sakkari, but in Ningbo, located on the coast of the East China Sea about 200 km south of Shanghai, another tennis player from the top ten, Uns Jabir from Tunisia, will test the skill level of 19-year-old Diana Schneider.

In her career, Schneider, who at one time successfully played for Russian junior teams of different ages, then went to study at one of the American universities, and this year made it into the top hundred, has not yet had finals at the WTA level.

Now in the quarterfinals she surprised with a victory in three games over the 14th racket of the world, Czech Petra Kvitova, who won Wimbledon twice, and in the semifinals with a score of 6:4, 6:1 she dealt with another representative of the Czech Republic – 18-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova, although she is considered one of the most promising representatives of her generation.

Evgeniy Fedyakov