MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has reached the quarterfinals stage of this year’s opening Grand Slam series tournament, the 2020 Australian Open, after defeating on Monday Angelique Kerber of Germany.

In the Round 4 match, which lasted 2 hours and 37 minutes, the 28-year-old Russian, who is seed 30th at the tournament, outplayed her 32-year-old German opponent in three sets with the final score of 6-7 (5-7); 7-6 (7-4); 6-2.

Germany’s Kerber is the winner of three Grand Slam tournaments (the 2016 Australian Open, the 2016 US Open and the 2018 Wimbledon) and is also the silver medalist of the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Pavlyuchenkova, whose previous best result of the Australian Open was reaching the quarterfinals stage in 2017 and 2019, is now set to play against Spain’s Garbine Muguruza, who stopped Dutch player Kiki Bertens in Round 4 with straight sets win of 6-3; 6-3.

The 2020 Australian Open tournament is played on the courts of Melbourne Park between January 20 and February 2 and has $49.1 million in prize money up for grabs. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Japan’s Naomi Osaka are the 2020 Australian Open defending champions in the men's and women’s singles respectively.