 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 04 Sep 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Sep 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 07 Sep 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 06 Sep 2006 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Sep 2006 | |
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| 07 Sep 2006 - Flushing Meadows, New York - Eleanor Preston | |
| Pavlyuchenkova ready to take New York by storm |
Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova seems to be learning with every experience. The 15-year-old Russian has been the outstanding performer of the year in the juniors and could end the season as junior World No.1 if she wins the title at Flushing Meadows.
The only blip on her otherwise stellar 2006 was a seemingly inexplicable first round defeat at Wimbledon to Slovakian Kristina Kucova, an upset which Pavlyuchenkova says has made her a better and more mature player. She is using her bitter experience at SW19 to motivate her during what she hopes will be a surge to the US Open junior title.
“I’m pretty confident. I prepared well for this tournament. When I lost early at Wimbledon I got a lot of experience from that and I am mentally stronger than I was. I worked hard and I talked a lot to my coach about my game, about my movement and about how I need to think on court. I want to win and I am ready for this,” said Pavlyuchenkova, who beat Great Britain’s Jade Curtis 6-2, 6-2 to move through to the quarterfinals in New York.
“I feel good here. I know everybody is human and everybody can lose and I understand that I can’t win everything even if I am No.1 in the world but of course I was a little bit shocked. She was a good player but maybe I didn’t like the grass and I wasn’t confident enough. Coming to New York it helped me. I am more motivated. Now when I’m playing I don’t think about the score or the result, I am focused on how I’m playing on every point. I know that I can lose one or two points and I can lose a match.”
Having made the quarterfinals, Pavlyuchenkova has already consigned her Wimbledon loss to history and believes she is ready to put all that she has learned into practice. “It’s the last grand slam of the year and I am very experienced at playing these events,” she said. “Sometimes I’m afraid of that because it’s not good to think that because you have to treat it like any other tournament. You have to play well and show what you can do. That’s all I want to do. I have to remember that there is no pressure on me at this tournament, and maybe that’s why I can play better here. I think I felt that pressure at Wimbledon. That’s what I learned there.”
Elsewhere in the juniors on Thursday, unseeded Croatian Petra Martic sprang a surprise by knocking third seed Ayumi Morita out of the tournament with a 7-5, 6-0 win; while Canada’s Sharon Fichman beat Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania, who was seeded nine places higher than her.
In the boys’ draw, third seed Nicolas Santos of Brazil is out after being upset 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 by unseeded Ukrainian Artem Smirnov. The tournament’s two nominal favourites, American Donald Young and France’s Jonathan Eysseric, both progressed to the last eight.
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