Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova called Maria Sharapova “a special athlete” as the 31-year-old Russian is drawing inspiration from the former five-time Grand Slam champion and looking to improve her game despite being in her thirties now.
Pavlyuchenkova, 31, made her first Grand Slam final at the 2021 French Open before losing to Barbora Krejcikova. After a great 2021 season, Pavlyuchenkova was limited to just three tournaments in 2022 due to a knee injury.
After basically skipping one entire season and returning to action this year, Pavlyuchenkova realized that she is a bit behind the competition. With that being said, former world No 11 Pavlyuchenkova is now looking to make certain improvements and adjustments to her game.
Sharapova was famously struggling a lot on clay early on in her career before drastically improving and winning two French Open titles.
