Daria Gavrilova
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Ranked 27th on the WTA standings, 23-year-old Daria Gavrilova was born in Moscow, Russia, and represented the country until 2016, when she emigrated to Australia. She has represented the country since then.
At 17, Gavrilova won the Youth Olympic Games, giving her the World No 1 ITF ranking at the time. Since then, she has gone on to defeat several higher-ranked players convincingly, among them Yanina Wickmayer, Anastasia Rodionova and Eugenie Bouchard, but struggles with a knee injury and subsequent surgery slightly derailed her career.
2015 was a powerful year for the young player, who won two titles in the span of two weeks there; she followed that up with two back-to-back top 10 wins at the WTA Premier event in Rome, and made her first ever WTA semi-final, which ended with a loss to former World No. 1 Maria Sharapova.
Her career has been on a significant upward trend since, with Gavrilova starting 2016 with Australia’s second Hopman Cup win and continuing to the fourth round of the Australian Open with big wins over Lucie Hradecka, Kristina Mladenovic and Petra Kvitova, then bagelled 10th seed Carla Suarez Navarro before her eventual loss.
Gavrilova’s start to 2017 has been marginally slower, with the 23-year-old nevertheless managing good wins over the quick-footed youngster Ana Konjuh and the higher-ranked Timea Bacsinszky.
Seeded 24th at Indian Wells, Gavrilova served well to defeat German Yanina Wickmayer but tumbled quickly to 10th seed Elina Svitolina, who is enjoying her own big run of form, currently at her highest-ever ranking.
Going on her current form, the committed Gavrilova, who has also had constant fitness levels, should definitely be able to hit the top 10 in the near future; she could also mark her own name among a group of young players looking to make their mark and take over from the sport’s Old Guard.
