Anastasia savours a ‘perfect 10’ at Wimbledon, after nine years

There's this stat that paints a picture of the wild, wild Wimbledon so far: six from the women’s top 10 have exited in the first week.

- Rutvick Mehta

And there’s this stat that draws the career arc of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: the Russian is into her 10th Grand Slam quarterfinal and her first at Wimbledon after nine years, beating Britain's Sonay Kartal 7-6(3), 6-4. All through that decade and the one before, the 34-year-old has never entered the top 10.

Reaching a career-high world No.11 in 2021, the season in which she made the French Open singles final and helped Russia to the Billie Jean King Cup crown, the 12-time WTA titlist could count herself as one of the more solid CV-flaunting pros to have never been in that celebrated top-10 club. Especially given the amount of turnover the WTA top 10 has had season after season of late, and players with Grand Slam pedigree that have landed in it -purely for context, Jasmine Paolini and Qinwen Zheng, the current world No.5 and 6, have entered six Slam quarterfinals between them.