30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

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At 19, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is the highest-ranked teenager in the world (No. 14). She first made headlines in 2006, when she defeated Caroline Wozniacki at the junior championships of the Australian Open. Since then, she’s reached the quarterfinals at the 2011 Australian Open, defeated third-ranked Vera Zvonareva at Roland Garros and amassed nearly $2 million in prize money. “Russians have this fighting spirit, and all of us girls on the tour are always fighting through our matches,” she says. Despite the success of Russian female tennis players in the past decade, they’ve faced some collective challenges. “To be honest, [establishing a career] in tennis wasn’t as easy for us as it looks,” she says. “Some of us didn’t have any sponsors, Russia is quite far from Europe, and we didn’t have international tournaments at home. We had to make the most of every opportunity.” In an age when some female tennis stars are maturing later in their careers — Li Na and Francesca Schiavone won their first Grand Slam singles titles at age 29 — expect big things from the young Russian.

See pictures of an alternative look at Wimbledon.