Anastasia Zakharova About

The Volgograd return-merchant who finally turned ITF volume into a Tour breakthrough

Anastasia Zakharova is a Russian right-hander from Volgograd, born 18 January 2002, who reached the Tour the patient way. She has won sixteen singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit, the résumé of a player who learned to win matches long before the ranking points followed. She made her WTA Tour main-draw debut at the 2021 Poland Open as a lucky loser, then spent years grinding through W25s and W100s before the Tour made room. She is still coached by her father, Vladimir Zakharov.

The game is a hard-court baseliner's profile built on the return rather than the serve. The pressure comes off the second-serve return and the break-point conversion — she leans on depth and consistency over raw firepower, and the numbers reflect a grinder who wins by stacking points rather than ending them early. The serve is the swing variable: when first-serve percentage holds, she's a problem; when it dips, the margins vanish.

The 2025 breakthrough was real. Highlights included her first career WTA Tour semifinal at Cleveland, second rounds at both Wimbledon and the US Open, and her first two Top-50 wins — d. Vekić at Queen's Club, d. Baptiste at Cleveland. The Wimbledon run carried the most drama: she overcame Victoria Azarenka to reach the second round, where she lost to Dayana Yastremska in a match that went to a final-set tiebreak.

That form carried into 2026. She hit a career-high singles ranking of No. 74 on 16 March 2026. She reached the second round at Indian Wells — where Britain's Emma Raducanu loomed next — and is now navigating life inside the top 100, the foothold a decade of ITF reps finally bought her.

Anastasia Zakharova at a glance

Anastasia Zakharova is 24 years old; was born in Volgograd, Russia; stands 1.7 m; plays right-handed; and is ranked No. 110 in the WTA rankings.