is a Japanese

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

player. Aoyama became a professional tennis player after graduating from

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

. She reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 182, on 9 February 2015, and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 4, on 28 February 2022. She has predominantly played doubles and has won 17 doubles titles on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour. WTA Tour tou ...

, having had her most successful

Grand Slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

appearances at Wimbledon, reaching the semifinals at the

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

and

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

tournaments. She has also won four singles and 30 doubles titles on the

ITF Women's Circuit The ITF Women's World Tennis Tour, previously known as the ITF Women's Circuit, is a series of professional tennis tournaments run by the International Tennis Federation for female professional tennis players. History It serves as a developmental ...

Personal life and background

Aoyama started playing tennis at age 9. Her favorite surface is

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

. She studied at Waseda University in Japan.

Professional career

2007–12: First steps, first WTA title in doubles

Aoyama made her

debut in the doubles event at

Gifu is a city located in the south-central portion of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city has played an important role in Japan's history because of its location in the middle of the country. During the Sengoku p ...

in 2007. In March 2009, she won her first ITF title at the $10K Kōfu doubles event. In June 2010, she won her first singles ITF title at the $10K Tokyo event. In October 2010 at the Japan Open, she made her debut at a

main-draw event. She failed to qualify in singles and had more success in doubles, reaching her first WTA final. In late November 2010, she won the $75K

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

doubles event. In June 2011, she made her WTA singles debut at the Birmingham Classic as a qualifier. At the 2011 Wimbledon she made her

debut in doubles. At the 2012 Washington Open in September, she won her first WTA title in doubles. In September 2012 she won the $100K Ningbo Challenger. During the 2012 season, she also won two $50K events, the

Lexington Challenger The Lexington Challenger (previously known as the Kentucky Bank Tennis Championships and the Fifth Third Bank Tennis Championships) is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hardcourts. It is currently part of the ATP Challenger Tour ...

and the

Bronx Open The Bronx Open ''(currently sponsored as the NYJTL Bronx Open)'' is a tournament for professional female tennis players played on outdoor hardcourts. It is classified as a $60,000 ITF Women's World Tennis Tour event and has been held in The Bronx ...

2013–16: More success in doubles, Wimbledon semifinalist

As time passed, Aoyama became mainly a doubles player, playing in doubles events preferentially to singles. She made a strong start to the 2013 season reaching the semifinal in the first week of January at the Shenzhen Open. Soon after, she won her first Grand Slam match at the

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Ope ...

, but then lost in the second round playing with

Irina Falconi Irina Falconi ( es, Falconí; born May 4, 1990) is an Ecuadorian-born American former tennis player. She moved to Manhattan, New York, as a toddler. Her highest WTA singles ranking is world No. 63, which she reached in May 2016. Her career-high ...

. In March she won the Malaysian Open with

Chang Kai-chen Chang Kai-chen (; ; born January 13, 1991) is a Taiwanese former professional tennis player. Career Her father is Chang Chin-lai and mother is Jun Yu-mei; she has two older brothers, Yao-lun and Yao-chung (both play tennis). Born and raised ...

. Later she also had strong start to the grass-season, reaching the semifinal at the Rosmalen Championships. She achieved more success at the Wimbledon, where she and

Chanelle Scheepers Chanelle Scheepers ( ; born 13 March 1984) is a retired South African tennis player. She won one singles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour, as well as 12 singles and 20 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit in her career. On 10 Octobe ...

reached the semifinal. This was her first significant

result. In the semifinal-match they lost to

Hsieh Su-wei Hsieh Su-wei ( ;''Xiè 謝淑薇Shūwēi'' in Chinese mainland. Taiwanese Mandarin: ; in Standard Mandarin of Chinese mainland. born 4 January 1986) is an inactive Taiwanese professional tennis player. She has won three singles titles and 30 ...

and

Peng Shuai Peng Shuai (; born 8 January 1986) is a Chinese retired professional tennis player. In February 2014, she was ranked world No. 1 doubles player by the WTA, becoming the first Chinese tennis player to achieve that ranking (in either single ...

. In September she won the

Citi Open The Washington Open (known as the Citi Open for sponsorship reasons) is an annual hardcourt tennis tournament played at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. The Washington Open is part of the ATP Tour 5 ...

for the second year in a row. At the end of the year she reached the semifinal of the Korea Open and won the $75K

Toyota Challenge The Toyota Challenge is a rugby union competition hosted in South Africa by the Cheetahs, a team sponsored by Toyota SA. The first tournament took place at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein between 13 November and 26 November 2021. In 2021 ...

. During the next three seasons she did not have as good performances as in the 2013 season. In 2014, in singles, her only significant result came at the end of the year, when she reached the final of the $75K

but lost to

An-Sophie Mestach An-Sophie Mestach (born 7 March 1994) is a Belgian retired tennis player. In her career, Mestach won two doubles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as six singles titles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 14 September 2015, she reac ...

. In doubles she won the

for the third year in a row, and later in October she won the Japan Women's Open. During the year, she also had success on the ITF Women's Circuit. In May she won the $50K

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since anc ...

with

Eri Hozumi is a Japanese tennis player. On 10 November 2014, she reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 144. On 27 May 2019, she peaked at No. 28 in the WTA doubles rankings. Partnering with Miyu Kato, she reached semifinals of the 2017 Aust ...

, and later finished as runner-up at both the $50K

Lexington Lexington may refer to: Places England * Laxton, Nottinghamshire, formerly Lexington Canada * Lexington, a district in Waterloo, Ontario United States * Lexington, Kentucky, the largest city with this name * Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldes ...

and the $75K

. In the first week of the 2015 season she reached the final at the Auckland Open playing with

Renata Voráčová Renata Voráčová (; born 6 October 1983) is a Czech professional tennis player. Voráčová has won 11 doubles titles on the WTA Tour and three on WTA 125 tournaments, as well as 15 singles and 56 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 11 Oc ...

, they lost to

Sara Errani Sara Errani (; born 29 April 1987) is an Italian professional tennis player. She is a former top five player in singles and former world No. 1 in doubles. With 9 singles titles and 27 doubles titles (including 5 Grand Slam doubles championship ...

and

Roberta Vinci Roberta Vinci (; born 18 February 1983) is an Italian professional padel and former tennis player. In doubles tennis, she won five major tournaments and reached the world No. 1 position. She also reached a career-high ranking of world No. 7 i ...

. A month later, she reached the final at the Thailand Open with

Tamarine Tanasugarn Tamarine Tanasugarn ( th, แทมมารีน ธนสุกาญจน์, , ; born 24 May 1977) is a Thai former tennis player. Born in Los Angeles, she turned professional in 1994, and has been in the top 20 in both singles and doubl ...

. She then did not made any significant results until September. She then reached the semifinal of the Korea Open, and later she won two $100K events, in

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

and

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

. During 2016, she won one WTA doubles title at the Japan Women's Open, and finished runner-up at the Nuremberg Cup, Washington Open and Jiangxi Open. She also won three $50K events, in

Quanzhou Quanzhou, alternatively known as Chinchew, is a prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China. It is Fujian's largest metropolitan region, with an area of and a popul ...

, Shenzen and

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...

2021: WTA 1000 & four more titles, Olympic & top 5 debut, WTA Finals semifinalist

2022: World No. 4, Australian Open semifinal

Performance timelines

''Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup/Billie Jean King Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.''

Doubles

''Current through the

2022 Toray Pan Pacific Open The 2022 Toray Pan Pacific Open was a professional women's tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts. It was the 37th edition of the Pan Pacific Open, and part of the WTA 500 tournaments of the 2022 WTA Tour. It took place at the Ariake Coli ...

.''

Significant finals

WTA Elite Trophy

Doubles: 1 (runner–up)

WTA 1000 tournaments

Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

WTA career finals

Doubles: 28 (17 titles, 11 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 9 (4 titles, 5 runner–ups)

Doubles: 39 (30 titles, 9 runner-ups)

Notes

References

External links

* * *
Japan Tennis Association profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aoyama, Shuko 1987 births Living people Japanese female tennis players Sportspeople from Tokyo Waseda University alumni Tennis players at the 2014 Asian Games Asian Games medalists in tennis Asian Games bronze medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games Universiade medalists in tennis Universiade gold medalists for Japan Universiade silver medalists for Japan Universiade bronze medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2009 Summer Universiade Medalists at the 2011 Summer Universiade Olympic tennis players of Japan Tennis players at the 2020 Summer Olympics 20th-century Japanese women 21st-century Japanese women