Anastasia Potapova

On the junior tour, Potapova has a career-high junior ranking of 1, achieved in July 2016. Potapova has had large success on the junior tour including a semifinal at the 2016 French Open, quarterfinals at the 2016 Australian Open and the 2015 Wimbledon Championships and doubles finals at the 2015 US Open and the 2016 French Open. Potapova won the 2016 Wimbledon Championships girls' title, defeating Dayana Yastremska in the final. Two of the seven match points in the final set were overturned by challenges.[1][2] This title made her the No. 1 junior in the world.

Potapova's other junior highlights include semifinal appearances at the Trofeo Bonfiglio and the Orange Bowl Championships, both Grade A events. Her biggest junior title, excluding Wimbledon, is the Nike Junior International in Roehampton, a Grade 1 event, where she defeated other highly rated junior players such as Claire Liu, Jaimee Fourlis, Sofia Kenin, Olga Danilović and Olesya Pervushina en route to winning the title.

Starting her first full year on the tour, Potapova started 2017 unranked as she had only played two professional events entering the year. She defeated rival Amanda Anisimova in the final at an 25k event held in Curitiba.[3] This triumph saw her defeat Teliana Pereira for her first top-200 win, and pushed her into the top-500 of the rankings for the first time in her career.

She then made her debut at a WTA event, having received a wildcard to compete in the qualifying rounds of the Premier Mandatory event in Miami, defeating Maria Sakkari for her first top-100 win before falling to Jana Čepelová in straight sets. A series of good runs on clay saw her reaching two ITF semifinals in succession, most particularly at the Empire Slovak Open where she was just an inch away from reaching the final, losing 5–7 in the final set against Verónica Cepede Royg, who went on to reach the second week at the French Open.

Potapova was handed another wildcard, this time into the qualifying draw of Wimbledon. She pounced on her chances, steering through all her matches in straight sets to make her Grand Slam main draw debut. However, an untimely fall during her first-round match saw her being forced to retire against Tatjana Maria, ending her impressive run.[4]

It was a bleak stretch of results which followed for Potapova, who reached just one ITF quarterfinal through the remainder of the year. She ended the year ranked 242, with a 20-14 win-loss record and eight top-200 wins.

Potapova started 2018 with a final appearance at the Sharm El Sheikh 15k event, but was upset by world No.769 Yuliya Hatouka there. She then played in her second WTA main-draw match at the St. Petersburg Ladies' Trophy, where she finally earned her first main draw win against Tatjana Maria in straight sets.[5] This set up a blockbuster second-round match between newly-crowned Australian Open champion and world number one Wozniacki and Potapova, a clash between experience and youth. However, Potapova was only able to claim one game against Wozniacki, falling 0–6, 1–6 to end her run.[6]

Potapova made her Fed Cup debut for Russia, but lost on her debut to the higher-ranked Viktória Kužmová, and was unable to lead her country to the victory on that weekend. Another ITF final awaited Potapova, this time coming at the O1 Properties Ladies Cup held in Russia. She ousted the 64th-ranked Monica Niculescu but was unable to close out her run as she was defeated by second seed Vera Lapko.

Reaching her first professional clay final in Rome, she lost to Dayana Yastremska there having just won one game in the process.[7] Potapova was given the chance to participate in yet another WTA event, and entered the Moscow River Cup with the help of a wildcard. She defeated two top-100 players and came out of nowhere to make her maiden WTA final,[8] but faltered at the last hurdle as she fell to fellow 17-year-old Olga Danilović in a historic clash between the new generation.[9] She led by a break in the deciding set, but failed to close out the win but still managed to make her top-150 debut with this amazing run.

Potapova lost in the final round of qualifying at the US Open to Julia Glushko but rebounded to qualify for her third WTA main-draw appearance at the Tashkent Open. She defeated Stefanie Vögele and exacted revenge for her Moscow loss against Olga Danilović in the second round.[10] She then trounced Kateryna Kozlova in the semifinals [11] to set up an all-Russian final with Margarita Gasparyan, where she was defeated with a one-sided scoreline.[12]

Her season ended with a tough, but encouraging loss to eventual semifinalist and eighth seed Anett Kontaveit in the opening round of the Kremlin Cup despite leading by a break in the final set.[13] Nonetheless, she ended the year inside the top 100 for the first time in her career with a dominating 6-2 win-loss record against top-100 players.[14]

Potapova received entry to the main draw of the Australian Open and played her first match against Pauline Parmentier, defeating her in straight sets. This was Potapova's first match win in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament. In the second round, she was defeated by 17th seed Madison Keys.

Current through the suspension of the 2020 WTA Tour.