Evgeniya Rodina - 2008

2008

Back in Australia a couple of days before the start of January 2008, she again tried her luck at qualifying for events on the WTA Tour, but suffered a rare bleak run of results as she lost in the first rounds of qualifying in all three tournaments she entered, falling to Julia Schruff of Germany at Gold Coast (1–6 5–7), to Yaroslava Shvedova at Hobart (5–7 6–2 1–6), and to Junri Namigata of Japan at the Australian Open (1–6 3–6).

But with few ranking points to defend from that time of year in 2007, she had slipped only three places on the WTA rankings list to World No. 123 by the start of February; and even a further first-round loss to Estonian star Kaia Kanepi (3–6 4–6) at the first tournament she played that month, the Tier III event at Viña del Mar, Chile, was enough to drop her ranking only to 127th by the last week of February.

In late February, she reached the second round of the Tier III tournament at Memphis, Tennessee by defeating former Top 100 player (but then World No. 158) Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus in Round One, before losing heavily to Lindsay Davenport, 1–6 1–6. The following week, early in March, she reached the second round of a $50,000 ITF event at Las Vegas with a 6–1 6–4 win over Varvara Lepchenko before losing to Chinese World No. 87 Yuan Meng 2–6 2–6 in the second round.

A reprieve from this disappointing run of finishes was just around the corner, however, as at the annual Tier I event at Indian Wells held over two weeks in the middle of March she came through two tough rounds of qualifying by defeating resurgent former Top 50 star Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria (7–5 6–2) and World No. 117 Rossana de los Ríos of Paraguay (6–3 6–2), and then went on to defeat wildcarded fellow Russian Anastasia Pivovarova (6–4 6–3) and French World No. 26 Virginie Razzano (6–0 6–7 6–2) to reach the third round of the main draw, before losing to Spanish World No. 31 Anabel Medina Garrigues (3–6 5–7). Her string of four victories at this tournament, albeit two in qualifying, was sufficient to lift her to a new career-high ranking of World No. 102 in the week beginning 24 March. In the French Open, her first direct entry into a Grand Slam Main Draw, she took on the top seed and her compatriot, Maria Sharapova on the Philippe Chatrier Court, the largest court at Roland Garros. Rodina fought gamely and made a good account of herself, before Sharapova won 6–1, 3–6, 8–6.