The likes of Maria Sharapova, Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, and Svetlana Kuznetsova have all been Grand Slam or Olympic champions, and others, such as Vera Zvonareva and Nadia Petrova have been consistent top 10 players with a high level of success on the WTA tour. However, only Sharapova and Zvonareva are still top ten players. It is time for some of Russia’s younger players to start showing their pedigree on the WTA tour in the coming years. So, who are they and how good can they be? Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has already shown that she is more than capable of mixing it with the big guns and looks to have the potential to be a future Grand Slam champion. Ksenia Pervak is also improving slowly, winning her first WTA title in 2011. One name that many tennis fans haven’t heard of though, is Yulia Putintseva, and she could be the one to watch out for most of all in 2012.
Still only 16, Yulia has had a successful junior career in which she reached the U.S. Open junior final, and the prestigious Eddie Herr Championships final back in 2010, as well winning a host of other junior titles in a short space of time, especially on her favoured clay court surfaces. She has spent 2011 playing a mixture of ITF events as well as continuing to play major junior events, and has already gained some notable success.
Putintseva’s WTA career has started very brightly. During the summer, she won two ITF $25,000 events in Moscow and Turkey, whilst her biggest success to date came in August, when the youngster won her first $50,000 event in Kazan, Russia, defeating another hot junior prospect, Carline Garcia in straight sets. Although these ITF events are a step down from the main WTA tour, it gives these girls a great platform to show what they are capable of, and plenty of competitive matches to gain experience. To win three titles at only 16 years of age is a great achievement for Putintseva, and has helped the Russian shoot up the WTA rankings from No. 725 at the start of 2011, to a career high of No. 230 — a rise of nearly 500 spots. Putintseva will now be able to gain some qualifying points in WTA tournaments and will be close to gaining entry into the qualifying rounds for Grand Slams in 2012, where she will surely perform to her best. Tournament directors will begin to see Yulia’s potential. She should also receive some wild card entries into bigger tournaments in the 2012 season. Putintseva will turn 17 in January, and will then be able to play a full schedule, without age restrictions. The young Russian will no doubt break into the top 100 next year, and gain some big scalps along the way.
Yulia Putintseva has a long way to go to match the success of some of her childhood idols, but she is on the right track. Like most of the Russian players, she will most definitely fight for her victories, and motivation will not be lacking. She may be short in stature (5′ 1″), but she will not be short in success in her career.
Chris Goldsmith is a contributing writer for On The Baseline, and writes about professional tennis on Twitter @TheTennisTalker.
