                                                                           34 yr old ex Australian Open mixed doubles winner Elena Bovina was once ranked 14 in the world in 2005. Bovina turned pro way back in 1998 and has beaten Venus Williams in Moscow 2004, Davenport in Stuttgart 2003, Capriati in Moscow in 2003, Golovin at Roland Garros 2003,  Clijsters  and Coetzer in Toronto, Demenetieva, Myskina, and Coco Vandeweghe in San Diego 2007.
Bovina has played just about every name you can think of in the WTA, spanning three different decades. Bovina lost to Bencic in Brussels in 2012, she lost to Mary Pierce in Paris 2004, lost to Mauresmo in New Haven 2002 67 in third. She also has been defeated by  Chanda Rubin, Magdalena Maleeva, Justine Henin, Sandrine Testud, Li Na, and Jelena Dokic.
The shining moment of Bovina’s career was when she won the 2002 Australian Open mixed title defeating Navratilova and Paes 61 76.
Bovina also won a singles title in Warsaw, Poland in 2003, besting Henrieta Nagyova 63 61 in the final (she beat Kuznetsova in the quarterfinal).
The Russian woman stopped playing in 2014 then tried coming back to tennis last year. Her current ranking is 982. She started playing  again recently (first event of this year was in March) losing to eventual champion Michelle Larcher De Brito in three sets in the round of 16 at a Tampa, FL ITF low level event. That loss seemed to hurt Bovina’s confidence as she has since lost three straight first round qualifying round matches.
The most recent loss was last week at a $60,000 event in Charleston, 46 62 67 (10-8) to Sanaz Marand.
Can Bovina be the next Kimiko Date or Brian Baker? Examples where an established professional player takes a lengthy hiatus from the Tour but returns to competition and actually achieves noteworthy success?
For the ones who do make it back, there are also others who do not succeed – such as Patty Schnyder, Thomas Muster, and Bjorn Borg.
I will keep an eye on Bovina’s progress so stay tuned to www.Tennis-prose.com.
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catherine bell · May 4, 2017 at 1:51 am
She could do. But most of the time, in my experience, they do not come back, at least to any significent level.