Tennis player Natalya Vikhlyantseva recently entered the first hundred of the world ranking among women, but now she is predicted to have a long and successful career. The girl is only twenty years old, and she is confidently progressing with each tournament held.
Federer reflection
Another tennis beauty from Russia has achieved good results in recent major tournaments, which made many fans and experts draw attention to themselves. Some are delighted with her bright appearance, others note the progress of exclusively playing characteristics of Natalia Vikhlyantseva.
Tennis in her performance reminds everyone of the best representatives of the so-called Russian style, whose bright representatives are Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and other fair-haired beauties. Aggressive style of play, powerful shots and innings, quick movement on the court - all this can be seen in the performance of a native of Volgograd. Natalya Vikhlyantseva has ideal physical characteristics for a similar manner of playing. With a height of 180 cm, she weighs 70 kg, which allows her to use an attacking, dominant style of play.
The tennis player’s best blow is the backhand - a left-handed hit; her serve was well worked out, many of her rivals experienced the power of her. Natalya Vikhlyantseva is perfectly physically prepared, during the game she actively moves around the court, preventing her opponents from breathing freely. The preferred coating in this style for her is hard, but the Russian woman is gradually improving in the game on the ground and grass courts.
Golden childhood
Natalia Konstantinovna Vikhlyantseva was born in 1997 in the hero city of Volgograd. A cheerful, healthy girl, she was unusually active, loved to move and from an early age tried to get into sports sections.
At first she tried to try herself in rhythmic gymnastics, but frank trainers honestly warned her that in training she would have to break herself, her character. Ambitious Natasha did not like this introduction, and she abandoned the idea of becoming a second Alina Kabaeva.
In the life of Natalia Vikhlyantseva tennis appeared almost by accident. The godmother advised the parents of the seven-year-old girl to send her to the tennis school of her native city. So Natasha became a student at the Tennisia Center, where she was originally one of many beginner athletes.
In those years, they did not predict a great future, she was engaged in a general group, but the experienced coach Elena Valentinovna Dmitrieva was able to reveal the rich potential of Natalia and instill in her a love of the game. For three years she studied at Tennisia, then at other tennis centers, and at the age of thirteen she fell into the hands of Evgeny Drozhzhin, who has been training her until now.
Pros
Natalia Vikhlyantseva began her professional sports career quite early - at the age of sixteen. She pretty quickly dealt with peers, was in the top twenty ranking among juniors. However, the transition to an adult level was not so easy, in 2014 she was only able to get into the first thousand of the strongest tennis players on the planet.
In the same 2014, Natalia Vikhlyantseva reached her first final of the ITF series tournament. At small competitions in the USA with a prize fund of fifteen thousand, she lost in the decisive match to the Czech athlete Maria Bouzkova. A year later, she repeated her achievement, becoming the finalist of the tournament in St. Petersburg.
Natalia's debut at the major starts of the WTA series took place in 2015 at the Shenzhen Open. The rating of the tennis player did not allow her to enter the fight in the main round, but the organizers sensibly reasoned that the spectacular Russian woman would decorate their tournament and provided her with a wild card to start in the first round. She justified the confidence and won in the first round against the strong German Anna-Lenam Fridzam. Thus she went to the third racket of the world to Simon Halep, whom she lost in two sets.
Breakthrough
2016 was quite successful for Natalia Vikhlyantseva. In August, she won her first ITF title, defeating compatriot Anna Kalinskaya in the final of the tournament in Pilsen. Just a month and a half later, she repeated her achievement in St. Petersburg, defeating the Croatian Anna Dokic. She wasn’t even helped in the stands by her friend Stanislas Varvinka, the 2008 Olympic tennis champion.
In June 2017, Natalia Vikhlyantseva for the first time in her career reached the final of the WTA tournament, having been defeated in the final by Estonian Annette Contaveit.
Among the best
Bursting into the second hundred of the world ranking, Natalia got the opportunity to start at the Grand Slam tournaments.
She started great, passed the qualification of the Australian Open and beat Vanya King in the first round. In the second round Vihlislyu was stopped by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Throughout the season, the Russian woman played stably and constantly went to the main stage of all stages of the Grand Slam, but the first round turned out to be a fateful frontier for her.
Feats in the native land
Having won a small tournament in St. Petersburg in 2016, Natalya Vikhlyantseva received a wild card to participate in the prestigious St. Petersburg Ladies' Trophy for next year. According to her, the Northern capital is her favorite city, and she shows her best game here, which was confirmed by her exploits in 2017.
In the first round of the tournament in St. Petersburg, she was opposed by Yaroslav Shvedov, who was at that time in the Top 50 of the world ranking. Nobody really counted on a young Volzhanka seriously, however that evening she was unstoppable and defeated a more experienced rival in two sets.
At the stage of the 1/8 final, Natalya Vikhlyantseva reached Daria Kasatkina, who is now called the most promising tennis player in Russia. The clash of representatives of the power style ended with an unexpected victory for Natalia, which sensationally reached the quarterfinals.
Here she was supposed to meet with Simone Halep, but she withdrew from the competition due to an injury. In the semifinals, the experienced Kristina Mladenovich was still able to stop the raging Natalia, but she experienced many problems with the reception of a powerful volzhanka feed.
Vikhlyantseva continues to make steady progress; not so long ago, she successfully performed at the Kremlin Cup, which allowed her to take off in the top hundred of the world ranking.