2007
In January she entered qualifying for a WTA Tour event for the first time in her career, her only previous WTA appearance having been thanks to a main draw wildcard. But far from being a minor-level WTA event, it was a Grand Slam that she chose to tackle first at WTA qualifying level, and more specifically the Australian Open. In the first round of the qualifying draw she comfortably defeated American star Angela Haynes 6–3 6–0. But then she lost in the second to another American, Bethanie Mattek, 4–6 1–6.
After taking the next month off from competition, she entered qualifying for the Tier III tournament at Bogotá, Colombia in mid-February, and reached the qualifying round with two victories over South American players, before losing a close match to a little-known Spaniard, Estrella Cabeza-Candela.
A week later, she entered qualifying for another Tier III event in the Americas, this time at Acapulco, Mexico. But she was drawn against strong German player Gréta Arn in the first round of qualifying, and ceded to her a close three-setter, 5–7 6–4 2–6.
Returning to the ITF circuit in March, she suffered a close first-round loss to Darya Kustova in the $25,000 event at Minsk before winning through to the finals at Moscow with victories over fellow-Russians Oxana Lyubtsova and Alisa Kleybanova, but then lost a very close final to up-and-coming star Ekaterina Makarova, who thereby avenged her defeat at the hands of Rodina in the finals of another $25,000 event at Moscow the previous August.
Staying with $25,000 events in April, she lost a very close first round match to Australian Casey Dellacqua 7–6 6–7 3–6 at Biarritz, France, but the following week won through to the semi-finals at Calvià, Spain, with a three-set quarter-final victory against Czech star Petra Cetkovská, 6–4 3–6 6–4, only to lose her semifinal tie to Spanish player María José Martínez Sánchez in straight sets.
Late that month, she stepped back up to the $50,000 level at Torrent, Spain, but lost in the second round to Estonia's Maret Ani.
Travelling to the Lebanon in May for the $75,000 tournament at Jounieh, she was upended in the first round by a little-known player from Slovakia, Zuzana Kučová, 1–6 4–6.
The following week, she reached the quarter-finals of a $50,000 tournament at Saint-Saint-Gaudens, France with wins over Margalita Chakhnashvili of Georgia and Joanna Sakowicz of Poland, but was then demolished by veteran campaigner Tatiana Perebiynis of Ukraine, who allowed her only one game in the match.
Towards the end of the month, she entered qualifying for a Grand Slam for the second time in her career, this time at the French Open, and defeated Hana Šromová of the Czech Republic in the first round, but then lost a very tight three set match to emerging Uzbek star Akgul Amanmuradova, 6–4 6–7 4–6.
In June, Rodina tried again at Wimbledon, but despite defeating her experienced compatriot Galina Voskoboeva in the first round of qualifying, she then lost rather easily to an up-and-coming Belarussian success story in the form of Olga Govortsova, 1–6 2–6.
After another month's break, she returned to action in late July at the $75,000 ITF tournament at Pétange, Luxembourg, and made it through to the quarter-final stage before losing to Carla Suárez Navarro of Spain 6–7 1–6.
In mid-August, she reached the quarter-finals of another $50,000 event at Bronx, New York with wins over Swedish star Sofia Arvidsson and Dutch campaigner Elise Tamaela, but then lost a very close quarter-final to Austrian Yvonne Meusburger, 6–2 3–6 6–7.
The very next week, she entered qualifying for her fourth straight Grand Slam of the year, and this time won two rounds at the expense of Elena Baltacha of Great Britain and Hana Šromová, but was defeated in three sets in the qualifying round by Olivia Sanchez of France, 6–4 1–6 4–6.
In September, as a direct entrant to the $100,000 tournament at Kharkov, Ukraine, she reached the quarter-final after notching up a straight-sets victory over another top British player, Katie O'Brien, in the first round, but then lost to veteran Anne Kremer from Luxembourg in the quarter-finals, 4–6 1–6.
At the end of the month, she achieved a career-first at Tashkent, Uzbekistan in qualifying for a WTA main draw, by successively defeating both Marta Domachowska of Poland and her Russian compatriot Anna Lapushchenkova in straight sets. Although it was only a Tier IV event, these were both strong opponents to encounter in a qualifying draw; and she capitalised on her achievement by ousting up-and-coming Chinese star Zhang Shuai in the first round of the main draw, 6–3 7–6. But then she faced emerging top-flight player Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in Round Two, and ceded the match to her in two close sets, 4–6 3–6, so failing to equal her career best result set at the same event two years previously, although on that past occasion she had entered the tournament thanks to the award of a wildcard and did not encounter such tough second-round opposition.
Later the same week, she entered qualifying for the Tier I event at Moscow, and toughed out three-set victories against compatriots Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Anastasia Pivovarova before ultimately losing a similarly close three-setter to Australian former top-ten star Alicia Molik, 7–5 3–6 4–6, in the qualifying round.
Towards the end of the month, Rodina returned to the ITF circuit once more at Podolsk, Russia, and this time fought past Galyna Kosyk in a three-set quarter-final to avenge her crushing defeat at her hands back in July 2006. At the semi-final stage, she ousted Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in another three-set tussle, but in the final she comfortably defeated Anna Lapushchenkova, against whom she has never yet lost, to earn her third career ITF singles title, and third at $25,000 level.
In early November, she entered a $50,000 tournament at Minsk, Belarus, and after edging past a little-known fellow Russian in Round One she successively defeated Viktoriya Kutuzova of Ukraine 7–6 6–3, Aravane Rezaï of France 6–4 6–3, and Ekaterina Dzehalevich of Belarus 6–2 4–6 6–4, to reach her career-first $50,000 final, having never previously made it past the quarter-finals at or above this level of event. Ironically, the final proved to be her easiest match of the tournament, as she virtually bulldozed Romanian Sorana Cîrstea for the loss of just one game each set, to take home her career-first $50,000 title. ´ The next two weeks were to prove less successful for Rodina. She first encountered Ekaterina Bychkova in the first round of the $50,000 event at Deauville, France, and was edged out by her 6–4 2–6 5–7. Next, after gaining direct entry into the main draw of the $100,000 event at Poitiers, France, she ran into Stéphanie Foretz and was defeated by her 3–6 2–6.
In December, however, she entered the $75,000 tournament at Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and enjoyed further success, with another victory over Anna Lapushchenkova in the second round, followed by the avenging of her previous defeat to Alla Kudryavtseva in the quarter-finals, though it was to be another close three-set match between them, 7–5 5–7 6–3. These victories took her to her career-first $75,000 semi-final, where she met Yuliana Fedak of Ukraine, and vanquished her in two close sets, 6–4 6–4. But in the first $75,000 final, she was faced with the challenge of playing erstwhile Top-25 star Maria Kirilenko; and though the first set was close, it was to be Kirilenko who eventually ran away with the match, 7–5 6–2.
Nonetheless, this performance lifted Rodina to a career-high ranking of World No. 120 on 17 December, a position she maintained at the end of the year, which had seen her surge upwards by a further one hundred and thirteen places.
Read more about this topic: Evgeniya Rodina