Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Anastasia Sergeyevna "Nastia" Pavlyuchenkova (Анастаси́я «Настя» Серге́евна Павлюче́нкова; born 3 July 1991) is a Russian professional tennis player.

Pavlyuchenkova was born in Samara in the Soviet Union to Sergey and Marina on 3 July 1991, as one of two children.

Her father was a rower and her mother a swimmer.

Her brother Alexander also played professional tennis for a time.

Her grandmother played professional basketball, and her grandfather was an elite umpire in that sport for USSR.

Pavlyuchenkova started playing tennis at age six, with her parents helping her.

Her brother, Alexander often travels with her and provides hints for her playing.

She also trained at the Mouratoglou Academy during her early career.

A junior prodigy, Pavlyuchenkova won three Grand Slam titles and became the junior world No. 1, in January 2006, at the age of 14.

She continued her success after turning professional, reaching a career-high singles ranking of world No. 11 on 8 November 2021.

Pavlyuchenkova first made headlines in 2006 by winning the Australian Open junior title, defeating Caroline Wozniacki in the final.

She reached another junior Grand Slam final at the French Open where she lost to Agnieszka Radwańska.

She then won the US Open junior title by beating Tamira Paszek in the final.

Her successful career as a junior also saw her reach the world No. 1 ranking on 30 January 2006.

She accumulated an overall win/loss of record of 131–23 and 87–22 in singles and doubles, respectively.

Her success in juniors enabled her to enter ITF and WTA tournaments, winning an ITF event in Italy in May 2006.

Five months later, Pavlyuchenkova received a wildcard into her maiden WTA Tour main-draw appearance at the Kremlin Cup.

She lost in the first round to rising Czech, Nicole Vaidišová, in straight sets.

Pavlyuchenkova also played for the Sacramento Capitals of the World TeamTennis league in the summer of 2006.

In 2007, Pavlyuchenkova barely missed out on qualifying for the main draw of the Australian Open, losing to Julia Vakulenko in the final round of qualifying.

However, she successfully defended her junior title by defeating Madison Brengle in the final.

For more than a decade, Pavlyuchenkova was continuously ranked inside the top 50 beginning 3 November 2008, when she entered the top-50 rankings for the first time in her career, until 5 June 2022.

Between the 2008 French Open and the 2020 Australian Open, she participated in 48 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, which is tied with Ana Ivanovic for the ninth-longest streak of consecutive Grand Slam appearances in history.

Pavlyuchenkova has won twelve singles titles on WTA Tour and five singles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.

Alongside Ekaterina Alexandrova, Daria Kasatkina, Veronika Kudermetova, and Liudmila Samsonova, they helped secure Russia's first Billie Jean King Cup title since 2008.

Throughout 2008, Pavlyuchenkova captured four ITF singles, two of them coming at the end of the season in Poitiers and Bratislava.

She ended the year inside the top 50 for the first time in her career, at world No. 45.

Pavlyuchenkova began 2009 season at the Auckland Open where she lost to Aravane Rezaï in second round.

At the Australian Open, she lost to Italian Tathiana Garbin in the first round in three sets.

That same year, she received a wildcard into Wimbledon, her maiden Grand Slam appearance, but was overwhelmed by 10th seed Daniela Hantuchová in the first round in forty minutes.

The following year, she entered Wimbledon as the youngest player in the women's draw.

She achieved a career-high ranking of No. 21 on 16 September 2013.

She reached a total of six quarterfinals in the discipline across all four Grand Slams (at the Australian Open in 2013, the French Open in 2013 and 2021, Wimbledon in 2014, and the US Open in 2015 and 2018) as well as winning two WTA 1000 titles at the 2013 Madrid Open with Lucie Šafářová and the 2022 Italian Open with Veronika Kudermetova.

Her biggest singles titles to date have come at two Premier-level tournaments, the 2014 Open GDF Suez and the 2014 Kremlin Cup.

She reached her first Grand Slam final at the 2021 French Open, having previously reached six other major quarterfinals at the 2011 French Open, the 2011 US Open, the 2016 Wimbledon Championships, and the 2017, 2019 and 2020 Australian Opens.

Pavlyuchenkova has also had success in doubles, having won six doubles titles on the WTA Tour and eight doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.

She won her first round match against 17th seed Alizé Cornet and went on to defeat Li Na before falling to 11th seed Radwańska.

At the US Open, the first Grand Slam at which she was able to gain direct entry, she won against American Vania King in the opening round in three sets, but was defeated in the second round by Patty Schnyder.

She won the gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the mixed doubles tournament with Andrey Rublev.

In team competition, Pavlyuchenkova was also part of the winning team at the 2020–21 Billie Jean King Cup.