Jaqueline Cristian vs Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: Anastasia has a Difficult Start in St. Petersburg

The leader of the Russian women’s tennis team, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, will start the hard-court tournament in St. Petersburg with a match against #58 in the world, the Romanian Jacqueline Cristian. They have never met before, and the bookmakers are siding with the Russian player. They believe that Anastasia should have no severe problems overcoming the first round.

In 2022 the Romanian played five official matches in three tournaments. Jacqueline lost to the Estonian tennis player Kanepi in three sets in Melbourne. The Romanian beat Hon in two games in Sydney but lost to Krejcikova. At the Australian Open, Cristian was stronger than Minnen. Also, she failed in a match with American Keys, who ended up being the opener of the first Majors of the year. So far, the stats for the year +2-3, i.e., negative.

Anastasia has only played the Melbourne Majors in 2022. Pavlyuchenkova made it to the third round, so there is no reason to talk about failure. Russian No. 1 will hardly be honored if she loses to her compatriot Cristian, Cirstea. Before losing to Sorana, Pavlyuchenkova knocked Bondar and Stosur out of the Melbourne tournament.

I feel better every day, so I will do my best to go as far as possible. St. Petersburg has always been a solid tournament in terms of the players. I applied for Dubai and Doha. Two big tournaments, but I’ll have to watch my health. I hope my body and my knee will be strong enough. If not, I’ll have to miss one of them. Then I’ll go to my favorite tournament in Monterrey.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova before St. Petersburg tournament

Pavlyuchenkova is worried about her knee. There is no confidence that Anastasia will be able to show her best already in her first match at the tournament in St. Petersburg. Although not a top performer, Cristian has had no problems with playing practice since the beginning of 2022. We root for Anastasia and hope that the first racket of Russia will pass to the next round of the St. Petersburg tournament. However, we doubt that Pavlyuchenkova will have an easy walk.