INDIAN WELLS, California—-Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Alica Kleybanova. Victoria Azarenka.
If you cannot spell their names, you should at least learn how to pronounce them because you could be watching these women compete for years to come.
Along with their slightly more established counterparts, such as Caroline Wozniacki, Alize Cornet and Dominika Cibulkova, these young women represent the changing future of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.
A whole new crop of young players has arrived—or will arrive in Pavlyuchenkova’s case on Monday—inside the Top 30 on the rankings with their eyes set on future glory.
These women are fearless, confident and ready to challenge the likes of Jelena Jankovic, Elena Dementieva, Ana Ivanovic and Dinara Safina. If Indian Wells has proven anything, it is that unless the top players play their best in every match, they will go down swinging.
For today’s Open Forum Friday discussion, let’s take a look at some of the rising stars. Who has impressed you the most recently? Which player has the brightest future? Who has the most room for improvement?
Everyone, thank you for participating! I hope you are enjoying OTB’s live coverage from Indian Wells. For those of you who have been lurking without leaving a comment, now is a great time to join the conversation!
By the way, this might help your water cooler discussion on Monday:
Kleybanova – klay-BAH-no-vuh
Pavlyuchenkova – pav-lee-oo-CHEN-ko-vuh
Azarenka – az-a-REN-ka
On the Baseline’s live coverage of the 2009 BNP Paribas Open is brought to you by Grand Slam Tennis Tours.
All three impressed me very much but I am a fan of Nastya and Kleybanova.
I hope to see them at the top in the coming years.
vika ll the way!!
shes ranked 11th and bout to be 10th
shes better then the other 2
she is my fav player
go vika!!
I put Azarenka into the same group as Radwanska, Szavay and Wozniacki, so I have a bit different classification system, I suppose. I realize she’s young than they, but she began to rise the same time they did.
So I’m leaving her out of the conversation. Of the other young players, I would have to say that Pavlyuchenkova has impressed me the most. She has a quite a way to go, to be sure, but the backhand and swinging volley are top-notch, and I like her on-court personality very much. As she matures and learns to think and move better, I believe she could be very good.
I agree with Diane. Azarenka has been on the rise before this year; it is just that she won her first tournament in the beginning of 2009. I too like Pavlyuchenkova and enjoyed seeing her play for the first time. There is a lot of volatility in the women’s rankings so any of the new players can start to make their mark more in the rankings.