Less than a week ago, Tennis Australia was lauding Arina Rodionova as Australia’s new top-ranked female.
“Arina Rodionova soars to a new career-high in this week’s WTA Tour women’s singles rankings,” the sport’s governing body trumpeted in a statement.
“The 33-year-old rises 20 places to peak at world No.112, bettering her previous career-best of No.116 achieved in October 2017.”
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Sadly for Rodionova and her fans, the career milestone wasn’t enough to get her a wildcard for next month’s Australian Open.
Starting the year ranked a lowly 302nd, Rodionova reeled off seven ITF singles titles and an impressive 78-26 win-loss record to move within reach of the top 100.
When the first round of wildcards were announced, however, Rodionova’s name was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, Kimberly Birrell (ranked 113th), Olivia Gadecki (127) and Taylah Preston (202) were handed spots in the main draw.
All three are relatively young and inexperienced, with Birrell aged 25, Gadecki 21 and Preston just 18 years of age, while Rodionova turns 34 on December 15.
None of Birrell, Gadecki or Preston have a profile pic on their bio pages on the official WTA Tour website (Rodionova does, for the record) and the wildcard decision was slammed by prominent tennis writer Ben Rothenberg.
“Rodionova wasn’t given a wildcard in the initial batch, which seems way harsh for a country’s No.1,” Rothenberg posted on X.
Daria Saville, Astra Sharma and Australia’s world No. 1 doubles player Storm Hunter were also overlooked.
“It is so annoying that only one of Daria Saville, Arina Rodionova or Storm Hunter can get that last remaining wildcard that isn’t the reciprocal ones,” was one comment on X.
“Two of them will have to come through qualies. Australian women’s tennis really is in the middle of a dark age.”
Another X user wrote in all capitals “WHERE IS RODIONOVA?” to which another user replied “Tennis Australia must really hate her”.
Tennis Australia did not respond when contacted for comment.
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