Svetlana Kuznetsova crashes out of Top-20 players in the latest world rankings – Tennis News
The latest ranking updates on Monday has slipped the Russian powerhouse, Svetlana Kuznetsova, nine places from the 18th spot to world number 27. She is the reigning Australian Open doubles champion;
teamed up with her compatriot, Vera Zvonareva and gobbled up the Grand Slam crown at the age of 26. Despite such a classic run in the doubles, Kuznetsova has failed to make a mark in the singles category and was ousted in the third round of the Qatar Total
Open at the hands of booming Czech starlet, Lucie Safarova, who made some remarkable upsets in the tournament to reach the quarterfinal stage.
Kuznetsova started off the year at Auckland, playing the ASB Classic tournament. She entered the tournament as the third seed participant and made it to the semi-final stage of the tournament where she was dumped by the reigning
ASB Classic champion, Jie Zheng. The trip to Sydney was very disappointing for her; she lost in the second round of the tournament, retired due to the injury and couldn’t warm-up well enough for the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open.
The hectic schedule of the matches fatigued the Russian and she lost in the third round of the Australian Open in a three-setter against the German dashing superstar, Sabine Lisicki. Her performance in the Fed Cup tournament
was very impressive as she denied the Spaniards of any win against her in the single rubbers; helped her team to an emphatic triumph.
She didn’t participate in the Open GDF Suez tournament, contested in Paris that also led to the decline in her rankings. She looked impressive in the Qatar Total Open, defeating the likes of Maria Kirilenko in the second
round but lost to the Czech contestant, Lucie Safarova, for the second time in a year; failed to avenge her loss in Sydney, earlier in January.
All these dismal results in the singles category declined her ranking swiftly and now she has to work her way back in the Top-20 players where she stayed for a very long time. It will be a tough task considering the competition
these days but definitely achievable for someone like Kuznetsova.
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