Former junior world No. 2 Anastasia Pivovarova attributed the failures of many Russians at the Australian Open to unpredictability at the start of the season and weather conditions.

By the third round, out of 14 representatives of Russia who started at the tournament, only two athletes remained – Ekaterina Aleksandrova and Varvara Gracheva.

Two words to describe it all: Australian Open. When the weather is constantly changing, many players simply do not have time to adapt, despite their professionalism and experience playing in Australia. It’s something new every year anyway. I think that unpredictable results always rest on the factor of weather conditions and the beginning of the season. All players work hard during the pre-season and not everyone manages to release the load in time to peak in Australia, not to go out under pressure and, plus, to have a margin for the next series of tournaments. The beginning of the season on the Australian series is always unpredictable. Some may play well in the first tournaments, but something will be missing at the Australian Open. For some, it’s the other way around. For example, Andrei Rublev was not successful in previous tournaments, but now he is performing well and is confidently going through the grid.

I’d say it’s just a coincidence. Veronica Kudermetova and Evgenia Rodina were knocked out by a young American tennis player Katie Volynets – apparently, she is in good shape, they were not lucky. Veronica performed well in previous tournaments. Nastya Pavlyuchenkova could not get in shape after a knee injury. As for the girls who reached the third round, the same Varvara Gracheva did not perform very well at previous tournaments, but now she is performing well, preparing to fight Karolina Pliskova in the next match. Everything is very unpredictable at the beginning of the season.

It is almost never possible to predict who can win the Australian Open, it is always some kind of amazing result. Some kind of dark horse can go far along the grid. This is what the Australian Open is famous for, it is interesting to watch and wait for such “stars,” Pivovarova told Gazeta.Ru