Tennis has found a new star in Anna Blinkova and this might not be an exaggeration. The unseeded Russian proved to be more than a handful to Elena Rybakina, the World No.3 as she pulled off an upset for the ages in women’s Grand Slam tennis. Blinkova won the first set 6-4, but lost the second 4-6, so she had to fight off a resurgent Rybakina in a match which could have gone either way.
Little could one have predicted that Anna Blinkova and Elena Rybakina would play a tie-break of epic proportions. It went upto 42 points with Blinkova eventually clinching it by a 22-20 margin, which saw many serves being broken and held by both the players. The Blinkova vs Rybakina tiebreaker lasted for 31 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena on Thursday morning EST.
Anna Blinkova hails from Moscow and was born on September 10, 1998. The 25-year-old has taken 9 years to finally make a name for herself in the tennis world. Her first top-1o win was against Belinda Bencic in 2020 and beat Caroline Garcia in 2023, who was the World No.5 at the time. The Anna Blinkova ranking at present is World No.57 in women’s singles and also plays doubles occasionally.
Interestingly, Anna Blinkova is set to cross the $3 million USD mark when it comes to her overall career prize money earnings due to her showing at the Australian Open and that amount is all set to rise, should she win her upcoming matches. This is despite the fact that she has only 1 WTA women’s singles title to her name, the 2022 Transylvania Open. Anna Blinkova made it to the third rounds of the French Open and Wimbledon tournaments in 2023, making this Australian Open 2024 campaign equal her personal best and she could reach a major career milestone on Saturday evening.
When it comes to her hobbies, Anna Blinkova loves travelling and in fact, has a separate business account on Instagram in which she talks about her travel diaries, named ‘Blinkova Travel’. The Russian youngster has 13,000 followers on her personal account and is very close to her friends. She does not have a boyfriend according to multiple media reports at the moment, as she is focused on her career and travels more.
Anna Blinkova is managed by Top 5 Management and has endorsements with the likes of Italian sports apparel giant Lotto and Wilson for her tennis equipment and gear. Blinkova is proficient in 4 languages – Russian, English, Slovak and French. She is said to be very fond of reading in her free time too and is deep into Russian literature. Her favorite sports autobiographies are of Andre Agassi and Usain Bolt. When it comes to authors, she prefers Jack London and Erich Maria Remarque.
Anna Blinkova Australian Open 2024 campaign and upcoming match
The next Anna Blinkova Australian Open 2024 match will be on Friday, January 19, 8.15 PM EST against Jasmine Paolini at the Show Court Arena. Paolini is the 26th seed in the women’s singles draw in the tournament, so would start as the favorite.
However, many tennis fans would want to see more of Anna Blinkova, so she can expect lot of support in Australia and on social media. It will be interesting to see how quickly Blinkova recovers after that world-record tie-breaker. The weather is expected to hold up nicely early morning in Melbourne, making a full match a huge possibility without any delays.
