Anastasia Rodionova

She ended the year ranked 78th place in singles.

Rodionova started the new season in New Zealand, but she was forced to retire in the opening round due to eye problems, where she was experiencing double vision.

After a short-course of treatment in Melbourne, Rodionova began preparations for the Australian Open.

There, she played under the Australian flag for the first time and reached the second round, losing to Katarina Srebotnik.

((cn)) In the next few tournaments of Pattaya, Doha and Dubai, Rodionova struggled with her vision with three first-round defeats in singles, but made a doubles semifinal with Arina at the Pattaya Open.

Then success increased remarkably, resulting in her gaining several considerable victories over the multiple top-30 players.

In India, she defeated the No. 20 in the world, Sybille Bammer from Austria, on the way to the quarterfinal, where she went down to Serena Williams.

She carried that confidence through the US series, passing qualification in Miami and reaching the second round, and making the third round in Charleston, losing to Jelena Janković.

Anastasia Ivanovna Rodionova (Анастасия Ивановна Родионова; born 12 May 1982) is a Russian-born Australian former professional tennis player.

Rodionova has won 11 doubles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as eight singles and 13 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.

Her greatest career achievements have come in doubles, having reached the finals of the mixed-doubles event at the 2003 Wimbledon Championships with Andy Ram and the semifinals of the women's doubles event at the 2010 US Open with Cara Black.

He coached her until 18 years old when she left Tambov and moved to Germany to practice for three years before returning to Moscow in 2003.

Her sister Arina has also been a professional tennis player since 2004.

She has resided in Melbourne since 2005.

In 2006, after reaching the second round in the second tournament in Los Angeles, Rodionova entered the top 100 for the first time in her career.

At the US Open, she became one of the leading players after making it to the third round (her best result in singles at a Grand Slam tournament to date).

This catapulted Rodionova to 81 in the world.

Rodionova suffers the ignominious distinction of being one of just four players in WTA history to be defaulted from a tournament, after hitting a ball towards spectators at the 2007 Western & Southern Open.

Her younger sister Arina is also a tennis professional, and the two sisters have intermittently contested doubles tournaments together, with modest success.

In 2007, Rodionova played a whopping 28 WTA tournaments.

At the Australian Open, she reached the second round but lost to world No. 2 and eventual finalist, Maria Sharapova.

In Miami's Tier-I tournament, Rodionova took more games off the eventual tournament champion Serena Williams in her second-round defeat than any other player in that tournament.

At the Estoril Open, Rodionova won her second title in doubles with Andreea Ehritt-Vanc from Romania.

Together they also made the finals in Morocco.

In the first Tier-level tournament in Los Angeles, Rodionova made the semifinals, partnering Tatiana Poutchek.

In Guangzhou, she reached the singles semifinal but was unable to finish the match due to heat stroke.

At the Tashkent Open, Rodionova once again teamed up with Tatiana Poutchek making the final, but lost in three sets to Ekaterina Dzehalevich and Anastasiya Yakimova.

May 2008 saw the beginning of a spate of injuries that significantly hampered the rest of the year, taking first-round honours in tournaments that she would have otherwise performed much more brightly.

Movement did not restrict her as much in doubles and she made quarterfinals in a Moscow ITF, semifinals in New Haven, third round in the US Open, and semifinals in Guangzhou.

However, it was clear that without major hip surgery, her career would forever be handicapped.

So Rodionova underwent major hip surgery in September 2008 in Melbourne to treat an injury that she had carried since Wimbledon 2003.

Results were restricted significantly for the first half of the year, while Rodionova strengthened her hip and built on-court fitness following the hip operation.

She sustained a badly sprained ankle during first-round singles at Los Angeles in July and was forced to retire.

Rodionova represented Australia at the US Open and equalled her career-best third round in singles before returning home to Melbourne to receive intensive treatment on a heavily injured ankle and torn leg muscle.

On 16 August 2010, she reached her career-high singles ranking of world No. 62.

Their most notable achievements as a team came at the 2010 Malaysian Open and 2015 Monterrey Open, succumbing in the super tie-break in the finals of both tournaments.

Rodionova started to play tennis at age 7, but she was introduced to tennis much earlier.

Her father Ivan was an amateur player so instead of toys, Rodionova had tennis balls in her pram.

In doubles with Elena Vesnina, she also reached the WTA tournament final in Bangalore, India and she captured her 11th ITF title in Italy in partnership with her sister Arina.

On 8 September 2014, she peaked at No. 15 in the doubles rankings.