WTA US Open 2011 Preview: Francesca Schiavone vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

French Open runner-up Francesca Schiavone managed to stay in the draw at this year’s U.S Open by edging past Chanelle Scheepers on Saturday in the third round. The Italian fended off a match point against the South African, and eventually got the upper hand in the third set to clinch a 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-3 victory.

Schiavone will continue her title campaign today with a fourth round matchup against world No. 16 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. On paper, Pavlyuchenkova had a tougher task ahead of her in round three, as she’d been drawn against eleventh seed Jelena Jankovic. Pavlyuchenkova rose to the occasion though, dismissing the Serb 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 24 minutes.

Schiavone has a 3-1 head to head record against Pavlyuchenkova, though the pairing are 1-1 on hard courts. It should be noted that Schiavone thrashed Pavlyuchenkova in the fourth round of this event last year, and there’s a chance that history will repeat itself. That said, it would be fairly surprising if the Russian is beaten so comfortably this time around.