Russia's rising star Kasatkina to face Williams in Aus Open third round

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  • Daria Kasatkina.

    The young Russians are coming… At least that’s the sense one gets from the first few days of the Australian Open as Daria Kasatkina, Margarita Gasparyan and Elizaveta Kulichkova all booked spots in the third round Wednesday.

    The trio are all aged 21 and under and are ushering in a young generation that could perhaps bring back Russian tennis to what it was when the likes of Elena Dementieva, Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova, were reigning supreme.

    Kasatkina is arguably the most promising of the lot and the 18-year-old will face her second Williams sister within a two-week span when she faces the top-seeded Serena in the third round on Friday.

    The Russian teenager, currently ranked a career-high No69, shocked Venus Williams in Auckland a fortnight ago and will be looking to complete a rare double over the legendary sisters.

    “It’s lucky for me to play against such a great player like Serena really because honestly, nobody plays forever. So it’s great that I had the opportunity to play against Venus this year and now against Serena, so I will just enjoy. Enjoy and try to show my best tennis and for sure nobody is unbeatable so I will try,” Kasatkina said Wednesday following her 6-4, 6-3 victory over Ana Konjuh in the third round.

    Playing just her second-ever grand slam main draw, Kasatkina has now reached the third round for a second consecutive major, having also made the last 32 at the US Open last year.

    “The US Open gave me a lot of experience for sure. Because there was everything, my first qualifying matches, grand slam first main draw match, first match on a big court against a good player, against Kristina Mladenovic, so I got a lot of experience there, and it helped me a lot in the next tournaments after,” explained Kasatkina.

    The young Russian followed up that US Open success by winning six consecutive matches in October in Moscow, from qualifying all the way to the semi-finals before falling in three sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. That run saw her enter the top-100 for the first time.

    Kasatkina, who won the 2014 Roland Garros junior title, had been eager to move up to the pro circuit early on, following in the footsteps of Belinda Bencic, who is her age but made the jump up to the women’s tour earlier than the Russian, in 2014, and is now ranked No13 in the world.

    But Kasatkina was advised by her coach to stick to the junior circuit for a while longer to gain more experience and she says she’s glad she took his word for it.

    “I was a little bit upset because she (Bencic) started to play earlier and she started to beat other players and showing results a little bit earlier than me,” admitted Kasatkina with a smile.

    “When she started to play with the pros, I was still playing juniors and I was talking with my coach telling him ‘I want to play pro, I want to start to play pro, why am I still playing juniors?’ and he told me like ‘Dasha, be cool, you just have to get some experience from everywhere’. And really the experience from juniors, it was great. A lot of experience and good memories, I don’t regret it.”

    Bencic, who claimed a stunning victory over Serena en route to winning the Premier title in Canada last year, was thrilled when she was told Kasatkina had made the third round and would face the world No1.

    “She has a very different game, she plays smarter than the other players,” Bencic said of Kasatkina.

    Does the Swiss teenager have any tips on how to tackle Serena?

    “Definitely not to be impressed too much I think, that’s what I would tell her,” said Bencic, who beat Timea Babos 6-3, 6-3 to make the third round.

    Serena said she will ask Venus for information on Kasatkina ahead of their third round on Friday. The American top seed was clinical in her 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei and is bracing herself for a tricky last-32 encounter.

    “I don’t think it’s gonna be easy. Any time someone is beating Venus they are more than likely playing really good,” said Serena. “So I definitely will be ready for that.”

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