How far will Karolína Muchová climb? The Czech tennis player looks ahead to the Grand Slam quarterfinals

Karolína Muchová has never made it this far at the Paris Grand Slam. After a weak year in 2022, she is reclaiming the lost ranks of the WTA rankings. How far can she climb? The quarterfinal match against Russia’s Pavlyuchenkova will decide.

The last Czech tennis player secured her return to the more comfortable spots in the WTA rankings on Sunday by advancing past Russia’s Avanesyanova in the French Open.

It is already certain that she will return to the top ten of the rankings at the end of this week. At least! Should the Olomouc native slip through the next round, she will equal her lifetime high in the rankings.

The twenty-six-year-old Moravian tennis player’s highest ranking was 19th. In the unsuccessful 2022 season, she dropped dozens of places lower. So in the current year, thanks mainly to her Paris mission, she is back to the previously achieved positions.

And deservedly so, at the only clay grand slam of the season she has lost a single set so far. Right from the start, she outplayed the world’s elite top ten player Sakkari and two rounds later she avenged her month-old defeat in Madrid to Romania’s Begu. She is playing tennis that must entertain the crowd.

After all, the legendary French tennis player Fabrice Santoro also paid tribute to her. After the match against Avanesian, he revealed that he enjoys watching her matches, which is of course good to hear.

Muchova was even happier with the result itself. “The hardest thing was to stay focused, to keep the level high all the time, to go for exchanges, for points, because then it started to get long and it was also hot,” she assessed the end of the eight-final match for Radio Sport.

Her run at the Paris Grand Slam is a record. The clay is not her beloved surface and already advancing to the eight-finals marked a new high for Muchova at Roland Garros. So she bettered that on Sunday.

She is now one win away from equalling her best Grand Slam result ever. That’s the semifinals of the 2021 Australian Open. At least for now.

Here’s to the quarterfinals

Another Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, awaits the Moravian player in the battle to be among the last four tennis players in the tournament. She missed most of the season last year due to a knee injury. But she has a lot to build on at the French Open. Two years ago she played the final here, where she lost to Barbora Krejcikova.

Muchova has a negative record against Pavlyuchenkova, winning one of her three matches. She won the last meeting with her at Wimbledon 2021.

But it’s tricky to compare a match on grass and clay. However, considering what both tennis players played this year at Roland Garros, the Olomouc native will be a slight favourite.

The Russian player turned three of her matches from 0:1 to sets. She defeated her compatriot Samsonova 7::5 in the deciding set, and was a tiebreak away from elimination against Belgium’s Mertens. However, she has managed to overcome all the difficult moments so far.

Let’s see how she will handle the duel against the last of our representatives who is in the game at Roland Garros.

Sources: Roland Garros, Radiožurnál Sport