Anna Lapushchenkova - 2005

2005

In 2005, the young Russian, now eighteen, dramatically stepped up her participation on the circuit.

At first she struggled, but in April she did at least equal her then still career-best feat of qualifying for a $10,000 tournament and winning her first round match, the venue once again being Minsk. Although claiming as her first round scalp her compatriot and fellow future international star Ekaterina Ivanova, she narrowly lost a closely fought tie in the second round.

She qualified for three of her next five tournaments but one only one further main-draw match, at Krasnoarmeisk, Russia, in July.

Regardless, at August she decided to push herself up to the next level, and entered qualifying for a $25,000 tournament for the first time since August 2003. The venue was Moscow, and the experiment was a success, as she won through into the main draw for the first time at this level, and also won her first round match there, before being trounced by compatriot Alla Kudryavtseva in Round Two.

Encouraged by this result, she entered another $25,000 qualifying draw at Balashikha, also in Russia, the very next week, and again won through the qualifying draw and won her first round of the main draw before losing to a little-known fellow-Russian player at the second stage.

On the back of the ranking points accrued through these results, she gained direct entry to her next $10,000 event at Tbilisi, Georgia in September, and for the third time that year and the fourth in her career won her first round match at this level, but then lost a close three-set battle to a high-quality opponent in the form of compatriot Yevgeniya Rodina in the next round.

At the end of that same week, still at Tbilisi, she qualified for her third $25,000 main draw; but then she fell to Margalita Chakhnashvili of Georgia in straight sets in the first round of the main draw.

In late October, she qualified for her fourth $25,000 main draw at the venue where she started her career, Minsk, and it once again proved a lucky place for her to play tennis, as she won two straight rounds in the main draw to reach her first ever ITF main draw quarterfinal at any level, recording straight-sets wins over familiar opponents Ekaterina Ivanova and Ekaterina Dzehalevich. But at the quarter-final stage, she lost a very close three-set tussle to Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus.

In December, she qualified for her fifth $25,000 main draw but was cut down by German Gréta Arn, who allowed her only two games in the match.

Still, the young Russian ended her first full year on the tour with some useful experience, and with her first serious world ranking of 527.