Alina Korneeva, an 18-year-old Russian tennis player, has qualified for the main draw of the WTA 1000 tournament in Rome for the first time in her career. In the final round of qualifying, she defeated Austrian Lilly Tagger, ranked 92nd in the world, with a score of 6:3, 6:3.
Alina Korneeva (Photo: Maya Thompson / Getty Images)
Korneeva, the 2023 junior Australian Open and Roland Garros champion and former junior world No. 1, currently sits at No. 122 in the WTA rankings. At age 16, she won her first main-draw match at the Australian Open in 2024 but then missed considerable time due to various injuries and has not played in Grand Slam main draws since.
The Rome tournament, with a prize fund of €7.22 million, concludes on May 16. It is a WTA 1000 event, second in prestige only to the Grand Slams and the WTA Finals.
