tournament ranked No. 52. Vesnina's challenge began disappointingly for her at Doha in mid-February with a first-round main-draw loss in straight sets to world No. 134, Ayumi Morita. Then at the Tier II tournament at Dubai, she was forced to go through the qualifying tournament, where she was defeated in the second round by Zheng Jie, whose then-current ranking of world No. 226 reflected her recent absence from the tour resulting from injury. The sum total of the ranking points earned by the Russian in February was just six. Returning to action in mid-March at the Tier I fixture taking place at Indian Wells, Vesnina could manage only the second round of the main draw after defeating world No. 98, Hsieh Su-wei, in a close three-set match in the first, as world No. 10, Marion Bartoli, vanquished her, leveling up their career head-to-head at two matches all. Arriving at Miami at the end of March ranked 53rd, Vesnina reached the fourth round with wins over Elena Likhovtseva, world No. 18 Ágnes Szávay, and improved world No. 60, Ashley Harkleroad, before succumbing to world No. 1, Justine Henin. The 70 ranking points she earned from this performance lifted her within the top 50 again at No. 45, with 638 ranking points, but still left her some 50 points adrift of the current standard required to match her previous best ranking of 41st. At the Tier-II Amelia Island in early April, Vesnina reached the third round after defeating Venezuelan Milagros Sequera and world No. 12, Patty Schnyder. But then she lost to much-improved world No. 49, Alizé Cornet. As a result, she achieved a net gain of just 25 ranking points to 663, and only one ranking place. 2009: First Grand Slam doubles final Vesnina participated in the Auckland Open in January. It was here that she advanced to her first final on the 2009 WTA Tour, upsetting the tournament's sixth-seed Nicole Vaidišová in the second round and the second seed Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals along the way. She then prevailed in a semifinal against British No. 1, Anne Keothavong, with a score of to set up a meeting with fellow-Russian and tournament top seed Elena Dementieva. She lost to Dementieva. Vesnina participated in the Australian Open but lost in the first round to Julie Coin. At Dubai, where she was a qualifier, Vesnina made it to the quarterfinals defeating Chinese