Starodubtseva into top 200 as sizzling year takes in fourth ITF crown

Yulia Starodubtseva’s first full year on the ITF World Tennis Tour is going rather well, to say the least.

The 23-year-old Ukrainian captured her fourth ITF singles title of 2023 at W60 Rancho Santa Fe on Sunday, beating Switzerland’s Lulu Sun 7-5 6-3 in the title match before backing that up with victory in the doubles alongside American Makenna Jones.

“I really wanted to win two this time,” said Starodubtseva. “I had two finals before and never was able to win two at the same time. Today was the day I guess.”

Starodubtseva, who played college tennis at Old Dominion University in Virgina between 2017 and 2022 and hadn’t competed on the ITF Tour since 2019 prior to this year, has been rapidly racking up results in recent months.

Since winning the title at W25 Spring in March in just her second ITF singles tournament in four years, she has gone on to reach finals at W60 Naples and W60 Evansville, and win titles at W60 Sumter, W60 Dallas and now W60 Rancho Santa Fe.

Starodubtseva, who lives and trains full-time in Westchester County, New York, climbed to a career-high No. 175 in the WTA rankings on Monday, having begun the year unranked and relying on wild card entries into her first three tournaments.

Elsewhere on the ITF World Tennis Tour this weekend, Thailand’s Thasaporn Naklo won the biggest title of her career – and first above W15 level – at W40 Shenzhen, as did Czechia’s Gabiela Knutson on Portuguese soil at W40 Quinta do Lago.

In the process Knutson denied former Great Britain’s Harriet Dart her biggest singles title to date, seeing off the former world No. 84 6-4 6-1.

There were also titles for Czech teenagers Sara Bejlek, 17, and Dominika Salkova, 19, who won at W25 Santa Margherita Di Pula and W25 Seville, respectively, as well as 17-year-old Australian Taylah Preston, who won her third career title this season at W25 Cairns.

Click here for all the women’s results on the ITF World Tennis Tour