Belinda Bencic stormed onto the scene at last week’s Rogers Cup to capture her second career title and first Premier 5 title, but in the shadow of all she accomplished last week stands another promising young player who took more strides in the right direction.
21-year-old Daria Gavrilova reached the round-of-16 before bowing out to Roberta Vinci last week in Toronto. That’s not that big of an accomplishment, right? It only takes two match wins to reach the round-of-16 in a Premier 5 tournament if you don’t receive a round 1 bye or aren’t a qualifier. So why is Gavrilova reaching the round-of-16 a big deal?
People should take note for two reasons. The first being the quality of opponents she beat. The second is if you look at her record in 2015, her wins in Toronto are no fluke.
In her first round match she took out the 2011 Rogers Cup finalist and 2011 US Open champion Sam Stosur. Stosur is a veteran of the fast US Open Series hard courts, making Gavrilova’s straight sets win against her an impressive one.
In Gavrilova’s second round match she played and defeated this year’s French Open finalist Lucie Safarova. Safarova, who was ranked #7 at the time, served for the match in the second set, but Gavrilova broke her and forced a third which Gavrilova won.
Gavrilova did lose the following day to Vinci, but she showed great fight in her short time in Toronto against difficult opponents.
Now in Cincinnati the 21-year-old defeated the #16 seed Sara Errani in her first round match. It’s her second career win over the Italian. The win more importantly brings her ranking up to #33 in the world, just one spot outside of being seeded for the US Open at the end of the month.
Where did Gavrilova come from? She’s beating quality opponents seemingly on a regular basis. The Australian-Russian was ranked #231 in the world at the start of the year and has climbed her way up almost entirely under the radar.
Earlier this year in Miami Gavrilova shockingly defeated Maria Sharapova. She followed that up in Rome by reaching the semifinals, defeating Ana Ivanovic and Belinda Bencic along the way. Her win in Rome against Bencic was her second win of the year against her; the other came in Sydney.
Gavrilova has yet to break through in a Grand Slam, as opposed to other young players like Bencic last year at the US Open where she reached the quarterfinals, or Eugenie Bouchard who reached the semifinals of last year’s Australian and French Opens, and then the Wimbledon final. This is probably why Gavrilova’s rise in the rankings has drifted so much under the radar this year. Once she has a breakthrough at a Grand Slam, don’t expect her to be hiding under the radar any longer.
People may forget Bencic struggled through most of this year until the grass season began. Before the grass season she had a record of 9-12. Since then she’s won two titles and has a record of 22-4. Gavrilova’s record this year is 27-13 and has two titles herself, but of lower stature on the ITF Circuit. Both their records are similar, however; it’s just Bencic has had the exposure.
This year’s US Open could be Gavrilova’s chance at that same exposure if she continues her fine play on the hard courts. Only time will tell, but for now the 21-year-old’s play in Toronto last week is a reminder that people should be paying attention to her and not just focusing on Belinda Bencic throughout the rest of 2015.
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