Arina Ivanovna Rodionova (; born 15 December 1989) is a Russian-born Australian professional
tennis
Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...
player. On 5 February 2024, she reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 97. On 27 July 2015, she peaked at No. 41 in the doubles rankings.
Rodionova has won one WTA Tour and one WTA 125 doubles titles, and 16 singles and 42 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 developmenta ...
. In 2007, she won the
Australian Open
The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...
girls' doubles title, partnering
Evgeniya Rodina.
Elder sister
Anastasia
Anastasia (from ) is a feminine given name of Greek and Slavic origin, derived from the Greek word (), meaning "resurrection". It is a popular name in Eastern Europe.
Origin
The name Anastasia originated during the Early Christianity, early d ...
is also a tennis professional, and the two sisters have intermittently contested doubles tournaments together with modest success. Their most notable achievement as a team came at the
2010 Malaysian Open, in which they reached the final before losing to
Chan Yung-jan
Latisha Chan (born 17 August 1989), formerly known by her Chinese name Chan Yung-jan (; ), is a Taiwanese professional tennis player who is a former world No. 1 in doubles. She has won 33 career titles in doubles, including a Grand Slam title ...
and
Zheng Jie
Zheng Jie (born 5 July 1983) is a Chinese former professional tennis player. In May 2009, she achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 15.
Zheng is one of China's most successful tennis players. She won four singles titles on the ...
in a super tie-break.
Career
Rodionova made her debut as a professional in 2004 at an
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 developmenta ...
event in Protvino, Russia. In 2005, she won a title in Minsk, followed by another win in Moscow the following year. In 2008, she finished as a runner-up in an ITF event in Istanbul. In 2009, Rodionova won two ITF titles in singles and eight in doubles.
2010
In 2010, Rodionova defeated
Jarmila Wolfe
Jarmila Wolfe (née Gajdošová, formerly Groth; born 26 April 1987) is a Slovak-Australian former tennis player.
In her career, she won two singles titles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour, as well as 14 singles and ten doubles titles on ...
in the final of a $25k tournament in Burnie. In doubles, she advanced to the final of the
WTA Tour
The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...
-level
Malaysian Open with her sister Anastasia. Although they defeated No. 1 seeds
Alisa Kleybanova
Alisa Mikhailovna Kleybanova (, born 15 July 1989) is a Russian former tennis player. Her career-high singles ranking is world No. 20, achieved in February 2011. In her career, she won two singles titles and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour. ...
and
Yan Zi along the way, the sisters lost the final match to Chan Yung-jan and Zheng Jie in close three sets.
2011
At the
Australian Open
The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...
, Rodionova equalled her career-best showing at a Grand Slam tournament by qualifying for the main draw. She lost in the first round to fellow qualifier
Anne Keothavong, 5–7, 4–6. She then won a
$50k event in May in Prague, partnering
Darya Kustova. She qualified for the
Birmingham Classic, and won her first-round match against
Virginie Razzano. She then notched the biggest win of her career by defeating No. 1 seed and world No. 16,
Kaia Kanepi
Kaia Kanepi (; born 10 June 1985) is an Estonian inactive professional tennis player. She achieved her career-high ranking of world No. 15 on 20 August 2012 and has won four singles titles on the WTA Tour.
Described as a 'resident Grand Slam up ...
, in the second round. She lost to the 14th seed
Magdaléna Rybáriková
Magdaléna Rybáriková (; born 4 October 1988) is a Slovak former professional tennis player. In her career, she won four singles titles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour. Rybáriková reached the semifinals of the 2017 Wimbledon Champion ...
in the third round. At
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* W ...
, Rodionova barely missed out on qualifying for the main draw by losing to
Kristýna Plíšková
Kristýna Plíšková (; born 21 March 1992) is a Czech inactive professional tennis player. In her career, she won one singles title and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour, with three titles on the WTA Challenger Tour (two in doubles). She a ...
, in three sets. She achieved very modest results through much of the rest of the year, losing in the first or second round of most tournaments she entered.
2012
In 2012, Rodionova lost in the qualifying rounds of the
Sydney International
The Sydney International (formerly known as the Championship of New South Wales and New South Wales Open, with various title sponsors), formerly sponsored as the Apia International Sydney from 2012 to 2017, was a professional tennis tournament ...
and the
Australian Open
The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...
. She then lost in the quarterfinals of the $25k
Burnie International
The Burnie International is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hardcourts. It is currently part of the ATP Challenger Tour and the ITF Women's Circuit. It is a $75k level tournament for the Challenger Tour and a $60,000 level tourn ...
. She then competed in two more ITF events – losing in the second and first round, respectively. She picked up form in ITF Mildura, reaching the semifinals. Rodionova then competed in three more tournaments, losing in the second round of all three. She then failed to qualify for the
Danish Open. Her best result of the year came at the WTA Tour clay-court event
Morocco Open. She defeated
Darija Jurak,
Karolína Plíšková
Karolína Plíšková (; born 21 March 1992) is a Czech professional tennis player. She has been ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), holding the position for a total of eight weeks, and has been ...
, and world No. 108,
Mathilde Johansson, to qualify for the main draw. Each match lasted three sets. She took on
Timea Bacsinszky
Timea Bacsinszky (; born 8 June 1989) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. A former top ten singles player, Bacsinszky reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 9, on 16 May 2016. She won four singles and five doubles titles o ...
in the first round, started well by winning the first set 6–2, but was forced to retire due a severe wrist injury she sustained while trailing 0–4 in the second set. She was also forced to withdraw from the doubles competition, where she and Anastasia were the No. 1 seeds. She missed a big part of the clay-court season to recover from the injury. Rodionova returned in July; she only made it past the first round in one of five ITF tournaments. However, she had a great result in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
where she reached the semifinals. Following three more early exits, she reached the final of a $25k event in Traralgon, and followed this up by winning her next tournament in Bendigo. She finished the year with two more early-round losses in Toyota and Dubai.
2024: Australian No. 1, oldest woman to make top 100
Following the
2024 Australian Open, she reached the top 105 in the rankings at world No. 101, 20 years after her professional debut. With a win over
Yuan Yue in
Hua Hin
Hua Hin (, ) is one of eight districts (''amphoe'') of Prachuap Khiri Khan province in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula in Thailand. Its seat of government, also named Hua Hin, is a beach resort town. The district's population was estim ...
, Thailand, she reached No. 97 in the singles rankings, on 5 February 2024, becoming the oldest woman to make a top 100 debut at 34 years old. She went one step further to reach her second career quarterfinal defeating another Chinese player,
Bai Zhuoxuan.
She qualified for the main draw of the
2024 US Open, but lost in the first round against Chinese
Wang Xinyu in three sets.
World TeamTennis
Rodionova has played six seasons of
World TeamTennis
World TeamTennis (WTT) was a mixed-gender professional tennis league played with a team format in the United States, which was founded in 1973.
The league's season normally took place in the summer months. Players from the ATP and WTA would ...
. In 2011, Rodionova was drafted by the
Washington Kastles WTT Team, coached by
Murphy Jensen. As a result of their 14-match win undefeated regular season, the Kastles secured the top seed in the Conference Championships where they beat the Boston Lobsters. In the WTT Finals, the Kastles defeated the St. Louis Aces to capture the 2011 WTT Championship for the second time in its four-year existence, completing the first ever 16–0 season in WTT 36-year history. Rodionova was named "Female Rookie of the Year" just prior to the Championship match and later WTT Finals MVP. She continued to play for the Kastles from 2012 to 2015, and joined the
San Diego Aviators for a season in 2019. It was announced, she would be joining the
Washington Kastles during the 2020 WTT season.
Personal life
Arina Rodionova was born to Ivan and Natalia Rodionova and lives in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
with her sister Anastasia.
[WTA Tour , Players , Info (Biography) , Arina Rodionova](_blank)
/ref> She began playing tennis aged three, "I began playing tennis when I was almost three years old. And why exactly tennis? There wasn't any choice for me with my dad being a coach and my sister a professional tennis player, but in the end I think it's worked well!" Rodionova cites Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis (, ; born 30 September 1980) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 209 weeks ( fifth-most of all time) and as the world No. ...
as her role model, and also admires Justine Henin
Justine Henin (; born 1 June 1982) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 117 weeks, i ...
and Bob and Mike Bryan. She prefers hardcourts and forehand as a shot.
Rodionova received Australian citizenship in January 2014 and married Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
er, Ty Vickery, in December 2015. The couple announced their divorce in 2025.
Grand Slam performance timelines
Singles
Doubles
WTA Tour finals
Doubles: 7 (1 title, 6 runner-ups)
WTA Challenger finals
Doubles: 1 (title)
ITF Circuit finals
Singles: 36 (17 titles, 19 runner–ups)
Doubles: 56 (42 titles, 14 runner–ups)
Junior Grand Slam finals
Girls' doubles: 1 (title)
Notes
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodionova, Arina
1989 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Tambov
Russian female tennis players
Australian female tennis players
Sportswomen from Victoria (state)
Russian emigrants to Australia
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' doubles
Naturalised citizens of Australia
Naturalised tennis players
Tennis players from Melbourne
Olympic tennis players for Australia
Tennis players at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Australian Open (tennis) junior champions
Australian people of Russian descent
21st-century Russian sportswomen
21st-century Australian sportswomen