The following year, she played her first WTA Tour qualifying event in Miami, Florida and her first Grand Slam tournament at the US Open.

In 2002, she won her first matches, reaching the second round at San Diego, Hawaii, and Bratislava, where she made her first doubles semifinal with partner María Emilia Salerni.

[citation needed] In 2004, Harkleroad made her career first tour final in Auckland, losing to defending champion Eleni Daniilidou.

For most of the 2005 season, Harkleroad sat out due to various injuries and an illness in the family, but the time she was on court was spent on the ITF circuit, winning two titles.

[citation needed] Harkleroad played her second main-tour event since 2005 at Auckland, qualifying for the main draw, only to fall in the opening round.

[2] In the grass-court season, Harkleroad played the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament for the second straight year as her Wimbledon warm-up.

[citation needed] Starting the year off as usual in Auckland, Harkleroad reached the second round, defeating eighth seed Émilie Loit, before losing to home-crowd wildcard Marina Erakovic.

Facing Germany, Harkleroad, Lindsay Davenport, Laura Granville, and Lisa Raymond made up the United States team.

Harkleroad crushed Tatjana Malek and Sabine Lisicki, both in straight sets to help the U.S. team win 4–1 and becoming the tie's hero.

[citation needed] Harkleroad then reached the final of the $75k event in Midland, where she was defeated by compatriot Laura Granville.

At the Sony Ericsson Open, she reached the third round, after taking out the 23rd seed Virginie Razzano impressively, but lost to Elena Vesnina.

[citation needed] At the French Open, Harkleroad lost against tournament favorite Serena Williams in the first round.

She also was accepted into the main draw of the Stanford Classic where she lost against defending champion Marion Bartoli in the first round.

Her father, Danny, works in the printing industry and played college football at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Her mother, Tammy, is a school teacher, and played college tennis at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee.

[citation needed] Harkleroad married ATP pro Alex Bogomolov, Jr. in December 2004, and they divorced in October 2006.

During US Open coverage on the U.S. network on August 29, 2008, commentator John McEnroe announced that Harkleroad was pregnant with Adams's child.

Following the 2008 French Open, Harkleroad told reporters she would appear in the August 2008 issue of Playboy, a decision she made while convalescing from ovarian cyst surgery in March 2008.

In an on-the-air interview, broadcast during the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, Harkleroad stated that swimmer Amanda Beard's 2007 pictorial was partly an inspiration for hers.