Jarmila Gajdošová
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| Country |  Australia |
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| Residence | Sydney, Australia | |
| Date of birth | 26 April 1987 | |
| Place of birth | Bratislava, Czechoslovakia now Slovakia |
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| Height | 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in) | |
| Weight | 67 kg (150 lb/10.6 st) | |
| Turned pro | 2005 | |
| Plays | Right; Two-handed backhand | |
| Career prize money | $420,379 | |
| Singles | ||
| Career record: | 139-79 | |
| Career titles: | 0 WTA, 7 ITF | |
| Highest ranking: | No.64 (September 25, 2006) | |
| Grand Slam results | ||
| Australian Open | 1r (2006,2007, 2008) | |
| French Open | 2r (2006) | |
| Wimbledon | 2r (2007) | |
| US Open | 3r (2006) | |
| Doubles | ||
| Career record: | 41-32 | |
| Career titles: | 1 WTA, 3 ITF | |
| Highest ranking: | No. 62 (January 29, 2007) | |
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Infobox last updated on: January 29, 2007. |
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Jarmila Gajdosova (Jarmila Gajdošová) (born April 26, 1987 in Bratislava, Slovakia, then Czechoslovakia) is an Australian professional female tennis player of Slovak origin.
By March 7, 2006, aged just eighteen, she stood within touching distance of the threshold of the Top 100 in the WTA Tour rankings, at World No. 106, after a year of great improvement, although she had already established a well-founded reputation as a child prodigy.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Junior career
Although she had already been playing in senior events for some years by the time, the highlights of her junior career came as she reached the semifinals at two junior Grand Slam tournaments. In the 2003 Wimbledon junior competition she lost in semifinal to the later winner Kirsten Flipkens. In the Australian Open junior competition, 2004, she reached semifinal in both singles and doubles (with Shahar Peer). In both times she lost to Nicole Vaidisova. Another success came in winning doubles at the Italian Open junior tournament in 2003 with Andrea Hlavackova.
[edit] Senior career: 2001-3
She began competing on the ITF Circuit just days after her fourteenth birthday in late April 2001, and that year entered three ITF tournaments, winning two matches and losing three. In 2002, she again entered only three tournaments, but this time won four matches and lost three.
Early in 2003, still aged fifteen, she stepped up her schedule, and that February she reached the semi-final of a $25,000 tournament at Redbridge, defeating Severine Beltrame, Sandra Kloesel, and Roberta Vinci before losing to Olga Barabanshikova. The very next tournament she entered, her third of the year and only the ninth of her career, she won outright. It was the $10,000 event at Rabat in March; and in the semi-final she defeated future Top-100 star Ekaterina Bychkova for the loss of just one game. On the strength of this result, she found herself wild-carded into qualifying for her first WTA Tour event, a clay-court tournament at Budapest in April, and justified the wild-card by defeating all three of her adverseries in the qualifying draw, including Melinda Czink, in straight sets, then ousting future Top-50 player Virginie Razzano of France in the second round of the main draw, before finally losing 6-4, 6-3 to future Top-10 player Alicia Molik of Australia.
The fifteen-year-old had started her first year of extensive competition as she meant to continue; and on her sixteenth birthday she entered qualifying for a $50,000 ITF event on grass at Gifu, Japan. Again, she qualified, defeating Aiko Nakamura of Japan in the qualifying round; and she reached the second round of the main draw before losing to another top Japanese player, Akiko Morigami. The very next week, she came through three straight matches in qualifying at her third successive event, another Japanese $50,000 grass-court tournament, at Fukuoka, defeating Sanda Mamic of Croatia in the qualifying round, before advancing to the quarter-final of the main draw after a second-round victory over Zheng Jie of China, only to lose to Saori Obata.
Playing two $25,000 tournaments in Italy in June, Gajdosova played a higher ranked player in only the second round of each, in the forms of Martina Sucha and Catalina Castano; and though she took a set from the Colombian, it was not enough to spare her defeat. She then headed to the U.S. Open in August, and reached the final round of qualifying with upset of Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, but ultimately lost to Aniko Kapros of Hungary. Her season ended with two more losses in the later stages of qualifying draws at WTA events to higher ranked players; and though Stephanie Foretz of France needed two tie-breaks to see her off at Luxembourg, it was a more one-sided affair in a repeat meeting with Kapros in Philadelphia, who prevailed 6–2, 6–2. Despite the frustration of these losses late in the season, the sixteen-year-old Slovak had soared from virtually nowhere into the World Top 200, ending the year ranked World No. 197.
[edit] 2004
In 2004, Gajdosova could achieve only parity with her superlative previous year. She crossed ties with a host of more experienced players as she focused her attention mostly on the WTA Tour events and the top-level ITF events, and failed to beat players like Gisela Dulko at Memphis in February, Marta Marrero at Indian Wells in March, future Top-20 star Ana Ivanovic in the semi-final at Gifu and again in the final at Fukuoka (though she took her to three sets both times), Jelena Jankovic at Filderstadt in October, and Russian Elena Vesnina in qualifying at Quebec City. She also suffered six successive losses between August and October to players most of whom she would be capable of beating when on her best form. But still, earlier in the season she scored wins over Lilia Osterloh and Tzipora Obziler in qualifying for Memphis, Akiko Morigami and Tiffany Dabek at Fukuoka, Zuzana Ondraskova in Wimbledon qualifying, and Elena Baltacha in a $50,000 ITF event at Lexington, while her performance in reaching the final of the $50,000 event at Fukuoka was her career-best in a tournament of its class. All in all, although unlike the previous year she had not won any events outright, her year-end ranking was World No. 217, down just 20 year-on-year.
[edit] 2005
In February 2005, she qualified for the annual WTA Tour event at Hyderabad, and beat Li Ting of China in the first round of the main draw before losing to Anna Lena Groenefeld of Germany. She did not play in March or April, but returned in May to win her first $25,000 ITF event and her second career tournament on the clay of Catania, Italy, beating Ivana Abramovic of Croatia in the final. The following week, she reached the quarter-final of another $50,000 event at Saint Gaudens, France, beating Argentine Maria-Emilia Salerni and French player Pauline Parmentier to this end. She entered qualifying at the French Open, and defeated Shikha Uberoi but lost to Swede Sofia Arvidsson in the second leg.
Over May and June, the eighteen-year-old suffered two consecutive losses in $25,000 tournaments to Chinese player Yuan Meng. But in Yuan's absence from her path, she was able to win her second $25,000 tournament of the year and third career title on the grass courts of Felixstowe in July, beating Katie O'Brien of the United Kingdom in the semi-final and Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia in the final. The following week, she remained on form, reaching the semi-final of the $50,000 event at Vittel, France, with wins over German Jana Kandarr and her younger countrywoman Sandra Kloesel.
For the second successive summer, she then experienced several consecutive early defeats, including another loss to Elena Vesnina and losses to little-known players. But in late September she pulled her form together again to defeat both established Top-100 player Alona Bondarenko and her younger sister Kateryna Bondarenko, and Maria-Emilia Salerni of Argentina to qualify for the WTA event at Luxembourg, in the first round of which she then defeated her highly experienced countrywoman Katarina Srebotnik in two close sets before losing to young Russian Dinara Safina. October's results were less satisfactory, and she did not play towards the end of the year. However, despite the inconsistency of her results in the second half of 2005, she had still improved her year-end ranking to a personal-best World No. 147.
[edit] 2006
Early in 2006, she enjoyed some of her best form. After being drawn in a fiercely competitive segment of the qualifying draw for the WTA Tour event at Gold Coast, she defeated three higher ranked players, Ivana Lisjak, Vilmarie Castellvi and Varvara Lephencko, all three matches running to a deciding set, to reach the main draw, whereupon she continued by ousting Italian Tathiana Garbin in another three-setter, before finally losing in her fifth consecutive three-set match to young Czech Lucie Safarova. Tellingly, it was the only match of the tournament in which Safarova, who went on to win the entire event, dropped a set.
The 18-year-old Gajdosova followed it up by coming through a slightly easier qualifying draw to gain entry to her first Grand Slam main draw at the Australian Open. She then lost a close three set first-round match to Martina Muller of Germany. But the ranking points accrued were sufficient to lift her to a career-best world ranking of World No. 117 on February 6, 2006.
Staying in Australia for the rest of the month, she retreated temporarily to the ITF circuit, winning two $25,000 tournaments in consecutive weeks, at Gosford and Sydney, the fourth and fifth ITF singles titles of her young career. These two minor tournament victories resulted in her ranking rising to World No. 106.
In mid-March, she followed up these two tournament victories by entering another $25,000 event at Canberra, and again came through as the outright victor, after defeating World No. 178 Hanna Nooni of Sweden in the semifinals and Australian Monique Adamczak in the final.
The very next week, she extended her winning streak to seventeen matches in reaching the quarter-finals of a $25,000 event in Melbourne, but then lost to Australian World No. 260 Sophie Ferguson, 6-1, 6-4. Still, once the ranking points from Canberra and Melbourne had been worked into the computer, she had succeeded in breaking through into the WTA Top 100 for the first time in her career.
In April, staying at the $25,000 tournament level that had recently brought her so much success, she reached another semi-final at Patras, Greece (losing in three sets to Estonian World No. 240 Margit Ruutel), but could only reach the second-round at Bari, Italy, before retiring when trailing upcoming French player Alize Cornet 6-0, 4-1.
Finally in early May she decided to return to the WTA Tour, entering qualifying for the Tier I Qatar Telecom German Open in Berlin while ranked World No. 94. However, she lost in three sets in the second-round of the qualifying draw to Ukrainian World No. 147 Julia Vakulenko, 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-3. The very next week, she lost in the first round of qualifying for the Tier I Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome to World No. 115 Viktoria Azarenka of Belarus6-3, 6-3.
By the time she entered the Tier III Internationaux de Strasbourg a week later, her ranking had slipped back to World No. 100, and she had to come through three rounds of qualifying (defeating French World No. 127 Severine Bremond in the qualifying round) to reach the main draw, where she immediately lost to French World No. 27 Marion Bartoli 6-0, 7-6.
She is now playing for Australia as of December 15, 2007.
[edit] 2008
Gajdosova started the year ranked World No. 142. She received a wild card into the main draw of the Mondial Australian Women's Hardcourts in Gold Coast, Australia where she lost in the first round to World No. 15 Dinara Safina 4-6, 6-1, 6-2. She then lost in the second round of the qualifying competition for the Medibank International in Sydney to World No. 100 Jill Craybas 7-5, 6-2. Gajdosova then received a wild card into the main draw of the Australian Open where she lost in the first round to World No. 7 Serena Williams 6-3, 6-3.
Gajdosova then played two tournaments in the United States. She lost in the first round of the qualifying competition for the Tier I Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California to World No. 101 Alla Kudryavtseva 6-2, 6-0. She then lost in the first round of the ITF Circuit event in Redding, California to World No. 199 Margalita Chakhnashvili 4-0 retired.
Gajdosova then played three ITF Circuit tournaments in South Korea. In Incheon, she lost in the first round to World No. 374 Jin-A Lee 6-4, 5-7, 6-2. The following week, Gajdosova won the tournament in Gimcheon, defeating World No. 295 Jingjing Lu in the final. Gajdsova then lost in the second round of the tournament in Changwon to World No. 432 Ling Zhang 6-1, 6-4. As of May 26, 2008, Gajdsova's ranking had dropped to World No. 195.
[edit] WTA Tour titles (1)
[edit] Doubles (1)
| No. | Date | Tournament | Surface | Partnering | Opponents in the final | Score |
| 1. | April 26, 2006 | Stockholm, Sweden | Hard |  Eva Birnerova |
 Zi Yan Jie Zheng |
0–6 6–4 6–2 |
[edit] External links
- Jarmila Gajdosova's home page
- Jarmila Gajdosova profile on the WTA Tour's official website
- Junior profile
