Elena Vesnina, a former world number one doubles player, announced her retirement on social media. The 38-year-old Vesnina retires as one of the best women’s doubles players of this generation. Elena was also a successful WTA Singles player, ranking in the top 15.
Doubles Career
Vesnina has won four Doubles Grand Slam titles. Three of them were with her partner, Ekaterina Makarova (Roland Garros 2013., US Open 2014. and Wimbledon 2017.). In 2013, when she won the French Open title with Makarova, Vesnina, and Makarova also finished as runner-ups in the WTA Finals in Turkey. She has also won one mixed title with Bruno Soares in 2016 at the Australian Open. Vesnina played eleven Women’s doubles Grand Slam finals, which shows how great a doubles player she was. Elena also reached five mixed doubles Grand Slam finals with various partners and won only one with Bruno Soares, as we already mentioned.
One of her biggest wins was definitely winning the Gold Medal with Makaraova in the Rio Olympic Games in 2016. Shortly after that, Vesnina and Makarova also won the WTA Finals title in Singapore. With various partners, Elena managed to win 19 doubles titles. Vesnina even came back on the tour after giving birth to her first child in 2018.
Returning from two seasons on maternity leave, Elena reached the final at Wimbledon in 2021 with Veronika Kudermetova, as well as mixed doubles finals at Roland Garros and the Tokyo Olympics with her partner, Aslan Karatsev.
Her last doubles match was at this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, where she lost in three tight sets in the opening round with her partner, Ekaterina Alexandrova, against Muchova and Noskova.
Singles Career
Elena made her professional debut in 2002 in Egypt, where she competed on the ITF Circuit Her WTA main-draw debut was in Quebec City in 2004. She won her first WTA singles title in Hobart in 2013, by beating defending champion at that time, Mona Barthel. At that time, Vesnina was ranked outside the top 50 and was unseeded. Prior to that, Vesnina already played five WTA finals, but failed in each of them.
Her biggest singles Grand Slam result was reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2016, where Serena Williams stopped her in straight sets. Shortly after that, in 2017, Vesnina captured the biggest title of her singles career. At the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Elena captured her third and final singles title. En route to the title, Vesnina defeated Kerber, Venus Williams, and some other great players, and because of that, she was also rewarded with her career-high ranking of 13.
Vesnina played her last singles match at the Olympic Games in 2021, where she lost in the second round of the tournament against Giorgi in straight sets. Elena played 10 WTA finals in the singles competition and lifted three trophies. Overall, it was more than a solid singles career. Vesnina leaves professional tennis with career prize money of over 13 million dollars.
Main Photo Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports
