(Provided by Tennis World USA)
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova pulled off an upset in the second round of the Strasbourg International on Wednesday. The 31-year-old defeated the no. 1 seed Magda Linette 6-3, 6-2 in merely 90 minutes. Pavlyuchenkova, currently ranked 424th in the world, won 72% of her first-serve points to the Pole’s 60%.
She also won nine of 17 points played on her second serve and 17 of 27 points on return on Linette’s second serve. Pavlyuchenkova lost her serve only once in the match, in the first set. In the second set, she saved the only break point she faced.
She also converted five break points on the 2023 Australian Open semi-finalist’s serve. This is the first time in almost two years that the former world no. 11’s reached the quarter-finals of a WTA event. The 2021 French Open runner-up last reached a WTA quarter-final at the Kremlin Cup in the October of the same year.
Strasbourg International: Elina Svitolina marches on
Now, the 2018 Strasbourg champion will play seventh seed Lauren Davis for a semi-final spot. The American took a little over two hours to come through against Viktoriya Tomova.
Davis won 75% of her first-serve points and 46% of her second-serve…
