She won her first Tier II Brasil Open title in Salvador, Bahia, and another runner-up finish in Leipzig confirmed her spot in WTA Tour Championships.

After claiming the title in Doha and defeating friend Elena Likhovtseva in the first all-Russian final in WTA history, she cracked the top 10.

Established her place among the game elite with a win in Sarasota, Myskina also had mediocre results during the summer season were followed by a quarterfinal appearance at the US Open, back-to-back titles in Leipzig (defeating No.

Myskina successfully defended her Doha title, afterwards becoming the second Russian woman to break into the top 5, the first was Natasha Zvereva, who rose to No.

The highlight of Myskina's 2004 season was a victory at the French Open, where she saved match points in the fourth round against Svetlana Kuznetsova, then defeated former world No.

She reached the final in San Diego, breaking Maria Sharapova's 14-match winning streak that included Wimbledon and beat Vera Zvonareva 17–15 in a third set tie-break, saving nine match points, winning the longest final set tie-break in WTA Tour history.

Myskina recovered from the tough loss to win the Kremlin Cup for the second straight year, and beat No.

3, a career-best year-end rank for a female Russian, and won over US$2 million in prize money, having scored ten top-10-wins during the 2004 season.

Bringing an 8–10 win–loss record to the beginning of the grass court season, Myskina managed to turn it around at Wimbledon by reaching her career-first quarterfinal at the event with three comeback wins over Jelena Janković (from a 1–5 final set deficit), and over Dementieva (being 1–6, 0–3 down and facing match points in the second set tiebreak).

She also beat the Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in Fed Cup semifinals, but then lost both of her matches in the final.

Along with second straight runner-up finish at the Tier IV event in Stockholm, she did not manage to win a single match in North America, going 0–3 during the US Open Series.

The downfall reached its nadir when she became the first person to lose a Grand Slam match against future world No.

Anastasia sat out for a majority of the indoor season with a foot and toe injury, pulling out of Stuttgart and her home tournament in Moscow.

[1][2] Myskina was a baseline player who combined excellent defensive skills with aggressive shot-making abilities.

Her two-handed backhand was powerful, and was hit flat and with consistent depth, and was responsible for many of the winners she accumulated on court.

Her forehand was also strong, especially when hit inside-out, and could be devastating when Myskina was in good form, but a lack of control sometimes led to a high number of unforced errors when employing this shot.

Myskina's greatest strengths as a player were her exceptional speed and court coverage, detailed and precise footwork, anticipation, and ability to improvise as and when the situation required.

After she won the French Open in 2004, some photographs from the shoot, in which she appeared topless, were published in the Russian magazine Medved (Bear).

In August 2004, she filed a US$8 million lawsuit against GQ for allowing her topless photographs to appear in Medved without her consent.

[6] On 19 June 2005, U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, later United States Attorney General, ruled Myskina could not stop the distribution of the topless photos, because she had signed a release.

"[9] She also made a lot of statements about tennis more benefiting girls than boys: "I think this is absolutely not a male sport.