Elena Vesnina

Elena Vesnina is a Russian professional tennis player. Vesnina has an all-court game, but mainly focuses on having an offensive baseline game. She is right-handed and plays with a two-handed backhand. Her game is centered around getting control in rallies by using her groundstrokes to dominate play or move her opponents around the court in order to find an opening. Her forehand is consistent and powerful, but her backhand is her strongest shot. She uses it to find many angles on the court and dominate play. She possesses a good serve and regularly hits it between 100-110 mph (161-177 km/h), but relies on placement and accuracy to dominate and serve aces. She is a four-time Grand Slam champion in doubles competition, having won the 2013 French Open, 2014 US Open, and 2017 Wimbledon tournaments with Ekaterina Makarova, and the 2016 Australian Open mixed-doubles title with Bruno Soares. In June 2018, Vesnina was the No. 1 in women's doubles. Her career-high singles ranking is No. 13, achieved in March 2017. Vesnina debuted in the main draw of a WTA tournament in Québec. One of her best seasons was in 2009, reaching her first WTA final and attaining a ranking of 24 in the year end. She repeated her success in 2013, reaching her best for a long period ranking of 21 on 22 July. Then she won her first WTA titles in Hobart and Eastbourne. After falling out of the top 100 in October 2014, Vesnina experienced an upturn in fortunes in 2016, making her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon. She continued her good form into 2017 and won the biggest singles title of her career to date at Indian Wells, claiming her first title. Vesnina has been consistently one of the highest ranked doubles players during her career, ending every season since 2008 ranked within the top 30, and every season since 2011 in the top ten. In May 2012, she entered a regular partnership with Ekaterina Makarova, becoming one of the leading teams on tour. They have won twelve titles together, including three Grand Slam titles, the 2016 WTA Finals, as well as Olympic gold at Rio. Vesnina together with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova are gold medalists of 2013 Summer Universiade in women's doubles (Kazan, Russia).