Elena Vesnina

Vesnina won three WTA singles titles, including the 2017 Indian Wells Open, and achieved her best Grand Slam result at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships, reaching the semifinals.

The next week, again qualifying at Al-Mansoura to enter the main draw, where she won two further matches, beating Hana Šromová of the Czech Republic in the second round, to reach her first $10k quarterfinal in her second event played.

The following week, at Antalya, she was knocked out in the first round by her then-compatriot Evgenia Linetskaya; and in May she met with mixed results in Lviv, Ukraine and Warsaw, Poland; but in June, she won the $10k event at Balashikha.

In the middle of September, Vesnina qualified for her second straight $25k tournament at Tbilisi, Georgia, and this time won the title, recording victories over Evgenia Linetskaya, Olga Barabanschikova, and Mariya Koryttseva, in the quarterfinal, semifinal and final respectively.

She started 2005 attempting to make headway in WTA Tour main draws and next entered the qualifying round of the Cellular South Cup but lost in straight sets to Varvara Lepchenko.

Extending her bad start, she made a first-round exit at the ITF St. Petersburg; she then qualified at Civitavecchia, reaching the semifinals before losing to Maret Ani in three sets.

In May, she entered qualifying for the Tier II event at Warsaw, and avenged her previous defeat by Adriana Barna, knocking her out but then fell again to Anna Chakvetadze in the second round.

Returning in June, she reached the final of an event at Galatina, Italy, defeating higher-ranked Tatiana Poutchek on the way, before losing the title to Mariya Koryttseva.

At her next two ITF tournaments in early July, she failed to qualify in Fano while losing to similarly ranked compatriot Lioudmila Skavronskaia in the first round in Cuneo, Italy.

But later that month, she qualifyied for her third career WTA Tour main draw at Modena, in the first round she cruised past a low-ranked special entrant from Maja Matevžič before being ousted by world No.

Vesnina attained direct entry to a main draw for the first time in her career in October at the Tashkent Open, where she reached her first quarterfinal losing to Akgul Amanmuradova.

She ended the year with a semifinal appearance at Poitiers in the final week of November and her last tournament, losing to Viktoriya Kutuzova (en route she beat Marion Bartoli and world No.

100, she was awarded direct entry into her first ever Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open, and reached the fourth round with defeats of qualifiers Li Ting, Julia Schruff and Olga Savchuk before losing to world No.

In May, retreating to a lower-level Tier-IV event at Estoril, Portugal, she encountered Flavia Pennetta, the first seed in the draw, in the first round; and this time the Italian wrought her revenge.

At the Carlsbad Open and LA Tennis Championships, Vesnina reached the second round of both events, losing to Emma Laine and Meghann Shaughnessy, respectively.

The following week, representing Russia in the 2007 Fed Cup final against Italy, Vesnina avenged her straight sets defeat by Mara Santangelo in their only previous meeting, by outplaying world No.

Returning to the Tashkent Open in October ranked 61st in the world, Vesnina reached the semifinals with victories over Alberta Brianti, Tatiana Poutchek, and Romanian youngster Ioana Raluca Olaru, but at this stage, she lost Belarusian teenager Victoria Azarenka.

Back in Australia for the beginning of the new season early in January, Vesnina suffered a poor start with a three-set loss in the first round at Gold Coast to an Australian wild card then ranked just 158th in the world, Monique Adamczak.

Returning to action in mid-March at the Tier I fixture taking place at Indian Wells, Vesnina could manage only the second round of the main draw after defeating world No.

It was here that she advanced to her first final on the 2009 WTA Tour, upsetting the tournament's sixth-seed Nicole Vaidišová in the second round and the second seed Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals along the way.

She beat María José Martínez Sánchez in the first round and Roberta Vinci in the second but she had to retire in her third-round match against the seventh seed Jelena Janković due to a left thigh strain while trailing.

In the first round, they defeated Alicia Molik and Matthew Ebden, and in the second Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Christopher Kas but then fell to the top-seeded Cara Black and Leander Paes in the quarterfinals.

The pair scored wins over the top-seeded Williams sisters in the quarterfinals (which ended the Americans 27 match-winning streak in Grand Slam doubles matches) and over fourth-seeds Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta in the semifinals.

At the Miami Open, she defeated higher-ranked players Gisela Dulko and 23rd seed Yanina Wickmayer, but lost to Anabel Medina Garrigues in the third round.

At the start of 2013, Vesnina claimed her first WTA Tour title by beating defending champion Mona Barthel in the final of the Hobart International.

In the Miami Open, Vesnina managed to get past qualifying after beating Kateryna Kozlova, avenging her loss in St. Petersburg, and Tsvetana Pironkova.

Stephens ended up prevailing 7–6, 6–2 as the fatigue of 718 minutes – nearly 12 hours – of tournament tennis appeared to take a toll on Vesnina in the second set.

[20] At the same tournament in doubles, partnering Veronika Kudermetova, the unseeded pair ousted top seeds and reigning Roland Garros champions Barbora Krejčíková/Katerina Siniaková and Caroline Dolehide/Storm Sanders in the semifinals, en route to the final.

[24] In mixed doubles, partnering Karatsev, Vesnina earned a silver medal, losing in the final to compatriots Andrey Rublev and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, failing to convert a match point at 10–9 in the third set super-tiebreak.

[27] She made her comeback in April at the 2024 Madrid Open, going on to play several tournaments with limited success and making her final appearance at the Paris Olympics, where she and Ekaterina Alexandrova lost in the first round to Karolína Muchová and Linda Nosková.

Vesnina at the 2008 US Open
Vesnina at the 2009 Wimbledon Championships
Elena Vesnina at the 2010 US Open
Vesnina at the 2011 Family Circle Cup
Vesnina swinging a backhand
Vesnina at the 2013 French Open
Vesnina at the 2015 Madrid Open
Vesnina at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships
Vesnina at the 2017 Eastbourne International
Vesnina at the 2018 French Open