Date won her first, and only, Tier I tournament at the Pan Pacific Open in 1995, defeating Martinez and Lindsay Davenport to the title.

2, Conchita Martínez, in the fourth round and Mary Pierce in the quarterfinal, before losing to eventual champion Graf in the semifinals in three sets.

She won the doubles title at that tournament with teenage and fellow Japanese partner Kurumi Nara, defeating Melanie South and Nicole Thyssen in a match tie-breaker.

She defeated both Nicole Kriz and Rika Fujiwara to reach the quarterfinals where she lost to Aiko Nakamura in straight sets.

She then defeated Shiho Hisamatsu and Zhou Yimiao to reach the quarterfinals where she lost to Tomoko Yonemura in straight sets, in another tournament in Japan, a 50k event in Kurume.

On 15 June 2008, she defeated Shiho Akita to win the Tokyo Ariake International Ladies Open for her first post-comeback championship.

Date made her WTA Tour comeback at the Tier-I event in Tokyo where she was awarded a wildcard into the qualifying tournament.

Date received a wildcard entrant to the main draw of the Auckland Open where she was overpowered by Jill Craybas in the first round.

Later in January, Date qualified for the Australian Open and met Kaia Kanepi in the first round, where she lost a close three-setter.

She then reached the quarterfinals of an ITF event in Clearwater, Florida, beating Lauren Embree of the US and fellow Japanese player Aiko Nakamura before losing to third-seeded Slovak Jarmila Groth in three sets.

She then beat American Lauren Albanese in the round of 16 for a place in the quarterfinals where she lost to qualifier Lindsay Lee-Waters in three sets.

She followed that win by beating Arantxa Parra Santonja to reach the final, and she earned a two-set-victory over Romanian qualifier Alexandra Dulgheru to claim the biggest title of her comeback that far.

At the Korea Open in Seoul, Date won her first WTA level match after the return, against Lee Ye-ra, and came up with a second victory right after over Alisa Kleybanova, coming back from a set and 5–2 down.

In the final, which was held one day before her 39th birthday, Date defeated Anabel Medina Garrigues to win her first WTA Tour title since her comeback.

Thus, she became the second-oldest player in the Open era to win a singles title on the tour, after Billie Jean King, who won Birmingham in 1983, aged 39 years, 7 months and 23 days.

Date then received a wildcard to play at the inaugural Tournament of Champions, the year-end championship, held in Bali, Indonesia.

Due to Wickmayer's ban from the sport for one year, Date made the semifinals but lost to top seed Marion Bartoli.

5, Anna Chakvetadze, in the first round, and then recovered from a set down to beat fifth seed Virginie Razzano for her first win over a top-20 player after her comeback.

[9] Date competed at the Australian Open in Melbourne, the first time since her comeback that she has had direct acceptance into a Grand Slam main draw.

Following the conclusion of the US Open series, Date, ranked 50th, became the oldest top-50 player since Billie Jean King in 1984.

At the US Open, Date received direct entry into the main draw but lost to two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round.

Her last activity of 2010 was participation in the Asian Games, where she won a bronze medal in singles and with Japan in the team competition.

She started out the grass-court season with a surprise doubles championship with Zhang Shuai in the Nottingham ITF tournament.

She came in victorious in singles, winning the title by beating Tímea Babos in the final; and finished as the runner up in doubles, partnering with Zhang Shuai, to Chan Hao-ching and Rika Fujiwara.

However, she and Kei Nishikori received a wildcard entry into the mixed doubles draw and, in her first ever Grand Slam mixed-doubles match, defeated the team of Gisela Dulko and Eduardo Schwank to advance to the round of 16.

Then, Date earned her first WTA main draw victory of the season in Pattaya by reaching the second-round where she lost to Hsieh Su-wei.

She then beat Yulia Putintseva to win Al Habtoor Challenge (ITF Dubai), her last tournament of the year.

12 seed Nadia Petrova in straight sets, and becoming the oldest woman to ever win a main draw singles match in the Australian Open.

Date skipped most of the clay-court season choosing only to participate in one warm-up tournament prior to the French Open.

After qualifying and first-round losses at Sydney and the Australian Open, she lost in the quarterfinals of Pattaya City to Ekaterina Makarova in three sets.