NEWS
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has continued her surge at the 2021 Mutua Madrid Open, taking out 11th seed Jennifer Brady to book her spot in the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 event.
The Russian, who held a poor 5-8 win-loss record for the year prior to this tournament, had already scored a huge upset win over Karolina Pliskova in the second round. The triumph over another big name in Brady would have further bolstered her confidence.
Awaiting Pavlyuchenkova in the last eight is Karolina Muchova, who came through a hard-fought three-set win over Maria Sakkari late on Tuesday night.
Playing in just her second tournament since the Australian Open, the Czech looks to have found her stride right off the bat. In addition to taking out Sakkari, Muchova has also scored big wins over the likes of second seed Naomi Osaka and Wang Qiang this week.
The 24-year-old will now be looking to carry her momentum further into the tournament.
Difficult draws and a slight slump had been contributing factors to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova's uncharacteristically rough start to the season. But the Russian did look solid even in some of her losses, and now she finally looks to have turned over a new leaf.
Pavlyuchenkova has put up a strong serving performance here in Madrid. That has helped her get out of some tight situations, something she struggled with in her earlier matches of the year.
If the 29-year-old can continue winning a few free points behind serve, that will help ease the pressure and allow her to play with even more freedom on her groundstrokes. And that's when Pavlyuchenkova is really dangerous; she can generate power off of both wings, and has one of the strongest front court games on tour.
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