PLAYING WTA TOURNAMENTS
The following year, she broke into the Top 100. At 22, it cannot be dubbed a precocious achievement, but it’s also not too late to still have many years at the top level. Her tournament schedule was a mix between WTA tournaments and ITF tournaments: in this way, she achieved good results, but she could not improve, because of course in the ITF events she did not play against the strongest players. For example, in March she chose to play (and win) two 60K events in Shenzhen and Croissy Beaubourg instead of playing the qualifying rounds in Indian Wells and Miami.
Even though she prefers hardcourts, she achieved her best result in a Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros. In the first round she beat Siniakova in three sets and in the second round she lost against Pliskova in three set – two Czech players. As a reminder, Pliskova would then reach the semi-finals (Ostapenko won the tournament). Alexandrova posted a 33-25 record during the 2017 season, finishing the year at N.69.
In 2018, she increased the number of WTA tournaments in her yearly planning, but it was difficult for her to get results against mostly higher-ranked opponents – at the Australian Open, she lost 6-0 6-1 against Madison Keys. An aggressive player like Keys forced her onto the backfoot (not her best suit). The autumn indoor season saved her season, though: she was the runner-up in Linz, where she started from the qualifying round and beat players such as Siniakova (7-5 6-0), Pavlyuchenkova (6-3 7-5) and Petkovic (0-6, 6-4, 6-0). She lost the final against Camila Giorgi (6-3, 6-1), another player who loves to play indoors. Then, as mentioned, she won again in Limoges. With these results, she earned the necessary points in order to end the season ranked 71st in the world.
In 2019, she made her biggest breakthrough. She focused only on WTA tournaments, instead of a mix of WTA and ITF. At the end of the year, she had 42 matches won and 27 lost, reaching 8 quarter finals and 4 semi-finals. These results show a greater consistency compared to 2018, and she began to win against Top 20 opponents: Wozniacki at Indian Wells, Bencic and Mertens on the grass, as well as a Halep in Beijing (the Romanian had some back problems, to be fair).
In 2020, before the Covid hiatus, she achieved two new goals. In January, she won one in Shenzhen, the first WTA title of her career. On the road to success, she defeated Muguruza and Rybakina. In addition, she was one of the players chosen by the Russian federation for the Fed Cup. In previous years, Ekaterina had even thought about represent Czechia. She found out what documents she needed, but in the end decided to keep playing for Russia, probably because it was difficult to imagine a great interest by the Czech federation, given the many local players available. Hierarchies in Russian tennis changed due to Sharapova’s retirement, Kasatkina’s crisis, and because Kuznetsova and Pavlyuchenkova lost a couple steps – nowadays, Alexandrova is the Russian N.1. Therefore, she heeded the call of her native country. In February 2020, the Russian line-up was Alexandrova and Kudermetova in the singles matches, and Russia eliminated Romania for 3-2 (Romania had Bogdan and Ruse in the singles, not their best representatives); Ekaterina won both her two matches, counterbalancing Kudermetova’s defeats.
In 2020, in addition to Shenzhen in January, once again she did her best in tournaments played on indoor courts. She reached semi-finals in St. Petersburg in February and in Linz in the autumn. As in the previous years, the best result she achieved in Grand Slam tournaments was a third-round exit.
