Arantxa Rus

Arantxa Rus (; born 13 December 1990) is a Dutch tennis player. In 2008, she won the girl's singles title at the Australian Open, defeating Jessica Moore from Australia in the final. With this win she went from 35th to second place on the junior rankings, ultimately becoming the world No. 1 junior player.

Her biggest singles successes to date are a second-round upset over world No. 2, Kim Clijsters, at the 2011 French Open, saving two match points in the second set, reaching the fourth round at the 2012 French Open, and defeating world No. 5, Samantha Stosur, in the 2012 Wimbledon Championships to reach the third round. Her maiden WTA Tour title was winning the 2017 Swedish Open doubles event, partnering Quirine Lemoine.

Tennis career

2005–07

At age 14, Arantxa played her first ITF Women's Circuit tournament at Alkmaar where she lost in the second round to Julie Coin.

In 2006, she played two more ITF events at Heerhugowaard and Vlaardingen, reaching the semifinals at the latter.

In 2007, Rus continued playing on the ITF Circuit winning her first title at Vlaardingen and second at Alphen aan de Rijn. In San Luis Potosí, she reached the final, but lost in three sets.
In 's-Hertogenbosch, she was granted a wildcard to play her first WTA Tour main draw. She lost to Alona Bondarenko 1–6, 1–6 in the first round.

Her end-of-season 2007 ranking was 465.

2008: Turned pro

At the junior level, she won the Australian Open and reached the semifinals at Roland Garros and quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
In April, she won an ITF title in Bari beating four seeded players along the way, including Lucie Hradecká and Alberta Brianti.

Rus was given another wildcard to play at 's-Hertogenbosch, where she was defeated in the first round by Mariya Koryttseva.

In September, she played qualifications in Guangzhou winning both matches and reaching the main draw. In the first round, she beat Yanina Wickmayer in three sets. This was her first main-draw win on the WTA Tour. Rus reached the quarterfinals by beating Gisela Dulko. However, she lost to Camille Pin, in straight sets.

After qualifying, she reached the second round in Tashkent losing to top seed Peng Shuai, in two sets.
In Opole, she won another ITF tournament, her second in 2008, and fourth overall.

She ended the year ranked 188.

2009

Rus failed at Hobart and Australian Open qualifying. Then she played some qualifying matches on few tournaments, but with no success. On the clay-court season, she found her game and in Marbella, she passed through the qualifying rounds, won in the first round, but lost to third seed Kaia Kanepi. A bigger result came at Roland Garros, where she started as world No. 142. She passed through the qualifying rounds, won her first-round match against Olivia Sanchez 6–1, 6–1 but then lost to Yaroslava Shvedova 0–6, 2–6. She played a few more tournaments without much success. Then, in the end of the season, she won ten of eleven matches. First, at ITF Poitiers, she passed through the qualifying rounds, won matches against third seed Alexandra Dulgheru and Séverine Beltrame before losing in the quarterfinals to Pauline Parmentier. Then she played at ITF Nantes where she won the title without dropping a set through the tournament, with a two-set victory against Renata Voráčová in the final. She ended the year with a win–loss record of 37–24.

2010

Rus failed at the qualifying rounds of the Hobart International and the Australian Open. She played few tournaments but her biggest result was in Marbella when she qualified to the first round. Then in Estoril she passed three qualifying round, won two matches in main draw but lost to Sorana Cîrstea. She lost at the US Open qualifying second round to Wimbledon junior champion Kristýna Plíšková, in three sets. She played at Koddaert Ladies Open. In the first round, she overcame eighth seed Tathiana Garbin, and in the second round was better than Michaëlla Krajicek. She lost in the quarterfinals to No. 2 seed Timea Bacsinszky, in two sets. Then she played qualifying at the Luxembourg Open, but she lost in first round to No. 5 seed Sorana Cîrstea, in three stes. Later, she played in the Real Tennis Masters Rotterdam final against Michaëlla Krajicek, but lost in straight sets. She ended the year with a win–loss record of 33–26.

2011

Her first tournament was the Brisbane International, where she played through the qualifying rounds. In the first round, she defeated Isabella Holland. In the second round, she defeated Olivia Rogowska but then lost to Anna Tatishvili in two sets. Rus next went through the qualifying rounds at the Sydney International. In the first round, she beat 1999 Wimbledon semifinalist Mirjana Lučić but in the second round, she lost against Bojana Jovanovski in a narrow three-setter.

In the first major event of the season, the Australian Open, Rus went through the qualifying rounds, as the No. 18 seed. In the first round, she defeated Julia Cohen. In the second, she again defeated Isabella Holland, and in the third qualifying round, Rus beat Kurumi Nara, also in straight sets. In her first Australian Open main-draw appearance, she defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands, but she easily lost to No. 23 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, in the second round.

Then, she played for the Netherlands Fed Cup Team at Group I of the European/African Zone. She won all of her singles matches against Hungary, Romania, and Latvia, helping the Netherlands with three victories. But they lost in the Promotional Play-off against Switzerland 2–1.

She played at ITF Stockholm, where she won the doubles title with Anastasiya Yakimova, and she lost the singles final from Kristina Mladenovic. She withdrew from WTA Monterrey because of illness. At Indian Wells, she played the qualifying but lost to Jamie Hampton, in three sets. Next was the Bahamas Open where she beat Jill Craybas and Kristina Barrois in the first two rounds. In the quarterfinals, she met her doubles partner, Anastasiya Yakimova, and lost in two sets. Then, she played qualifying matches for the Miami Open. In the first round, she defeated Japanese Misaki Doi and Michelle Larcher de Brito in the second qualifying round. In the main draw, she lost in the first round against Lourdes Domínguez Lino, in three sets.

Next was the Andalucia Tennis Experience, where she faced Dinara Safina in the first round, losing 6–3, 2–6, 4–6. She also lost in the first round at Fes in three sets to Aravane Rezaï. Then she played qualifying matches for the Portugal Open, beating Anne Kremer in the first round 6–0, 6–1, but losing against Sesil Karatancheva in three sets. She played the first round at the Madrid Open, losing against Maria Sharapova.

She continued on the ITF Circuit, first at Saint-Gaudens. In the first round, Rus beat Claire de Gubernatis 6–1, 6–1, and in the second round Séverine Beltrame 6–3, 6–3. In the quarterfinal, she beat former junior No. 1 Elina Svitolina in three, and in the semifinal Valeria Savinykh in two sets. She lost to Anastasia Pivovarova in the final in three sets. Then, she went on to the French Open and defeated Marina Erakovic in the first round. In the second round, she defeated the No. 2 seed Kim Clijsters 3–6, 7–5, 6–1, after saving two match points. She easily lost to Maria Kirilenko. Than she played at UNICEF Open where she defeated Indy de Vroome and CoCo Vandeweghe before she lost again to Svetlana Kuznetsova. In Wimbledon qualifying first round, she was better than Olivia Sanchez before she lost to Lindsay Lee-Waters, in second round. Then she played at the ITF Cuneo where she defeated Camilla Rosatello, Laura Pous Tió, Petra Martić and Mirjana Lučić but lost to Anna Tatishvili in the final. She was playing at ITF Contrexéville where as top seed she defeated Anna-Lena Grönefeld in the first round, Roxane Vaisemberg in the second, both in straight sets, but lost to Iryna Brémond in the quarterfinals. Then, she played ITF Astana where she defeated Zarina Diyas 6–7, 6–3, 7–6 in the first round; but in second round against Ekaterina Bychkova, she retired in the third set when Bychkova leading 2–0. After that, she had tough trainings until the US Open where she defeated Elena Vesnina 6–4, 6–2 but clearly lost to Caroline Wozniacki in the second round. After that, she played at the ITF Nigbo and lost to Xu Yifan in the second round. Then she had three first-round losses at Seoul (lost to Dulgheru), Pan Pacific open (to Pavlyuchenkova) and at qualifying first round in Linz (lost to Broady). Then she had huge break from tennis and played next tournament at ITF Dubai. She won matches against Erika Sema

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