Veronika Kudermetova

Veronika Kudermetova came up the long way out of Kazan, where she was born in 1997 into a sporting family — her father played pro hockey, her younger sister Polina is also on tour. She made her professional debut on the ITF circuit in 2011 and ground through Futures and Challenger events for years before her breakthrough. She reached round two on her WTA main-draw debut at 2018 Stuttgart as a qualifier, beating then-No. 25 Suárez Navarro, then posted her first tour-level quarterfinals at 's-Hertogenbosch and Gstaad.

The game is flat, heavy, first-strike baseline tennis off both wings — a right-hander who leans on a big serve and takes time away early in the rally. The signature stretch came in 2019, when she won 27 main-draw matches — after just six across her entire career to that point — to climb over 60 places, hitting the Top 100 in February and the Top 50 in September. She closed that run with marquee scalps: a first top-ten win over Belinda Bencic at Wuhan, then a stunner over then-No. 4 Elina Svitolina at the Kremlin Cup.

The peak years were 2021–2022. She lifted her first tour title at the 2021 Charleston Open, beating Danka Kovinić in the final. In 2022 she made finals at Melbourne, Dubai (l. Jelena Ostapenko) and Istanbul, reached her maiden Slam quarterfinal at Roland Garros, and cracked the singles top 10 — a career-high of No. 9 in October. Her ceiling, though, has cleared higher in doubles. She hit world No. 2, and partnering Elise Mertens won the 2025 Wimbledon title plus the 2022 and 2025 WTA Finals.

The current beat: ranked 85, Kudermetova is working back from outside the Slam seedings, with her singles results trailing the doubles form that still carries her week to week.