I think that the 2005 Orange Bowl 16s champion deserves her own thread. Oksana is from Tbilsi, Georgia and was born on Sept. 5, 1990 so she's 15 years old. Here are some pics of Oksana from the Orange Bowl.
Looks like she won't try and play (singles) ITFs anymore and only focus on WTA dubs. I can understand it's a tough life to go from weaker tournament to weaker tournament and keep losing, and that she might be disheartened, but I really wish she gave another try. She was so close to breaking Top 150.
Doubles QF: Kalashnikova/Kania d. (3)Beygelzimer/Savchuk 0 & 2.
She really is a great dubs player. She's currently ranked #63, she even had broken Top 50 last year with a CHR of 47 at the end of September. :yeah:
But I really wish she gave at least another try at singles. I mean, she was on the verge of breaking Top 150 in 2010 (CHR of 156 in July 2010) and was playing Slam qualies, which many players would already dream of. I believe it would really be worth it.
Problem is, she's currently ranked #353, which is not bad considering she's played only 3 singles events (all qualies, of WTA tournaments only - Monterrey, Oeiras & Birmingham). But here is the point actually. She doesn't seem to be willing to give herself another chance in singles, as she only played singles in the WTA tournaments where she was playing doubles and her singles ranking allowed her to try qualies at the same time. But as she could play only 3 so far, and never managed to qualify, her singles ranking will keep fading and soon she won't be able to even try playing these qualies at all.
If she wanted to try singles again, she'd obviously try playing ITFs first, but that would be detrimental to her doubles aspirations, as she clearly has WTA level in doubles. That's a real dilemma, there's a sacrifice to be made. For the moment, it clearly looks like she has chosen doubles. Which I can clearly understand: she's seemingly more gifted at it, it's way easier on the body, and playing successfully at WTA level is much more pleasant than the hard life of going from weak tournament to weak tournament with mixed results.
Oh, well. Whatever makes up her happy after all. That's already great enough that she's succeeding in doubles. :yeah:
SF won't be against (2)Pliskova/Pliskova, but against Solovyeva/Tatishvili who upset them in 3 sets.
I actually would have loved a SF against the Pliskies as I love them too, but on the bright side, I think playing Solovyeva & Tatishvili should be easier.
I just watched this video and felt nostalgic. Can't believe it was 5 years ago already. Both were among the most promising young players at that time. And now, one is retired (Milevskaya hasn't played a tennis match since Sept 2012) and one gave up on singles.
Video of the last couple of games in their epic Wimbledon R1 doubles match against the Williamses. Unfortunately, it was far from the best part of the match (I believe this is the only upload of this match), and Oksi pretty much sucked in these 2 games (broken on serve, bad returns in the following game ).