in the second qualifying round. With a protected ranking she received an entrance directly in the first round at the US Open, and first she defeated Varvara Lepchenko in a tough three-setter, before losing 2–6, 1–6 to 13th seeded Ana Ivanovic. Before playing some smaller ITF tournaments, she ended her WTA Tour in Seoul, where she won in straight sets against wildcard Han Sung-hee, before losing in the second round to Lara Arruabarrena in three sets. At the end of the year, Alexandra was ranked 164th in the WTA rankings. 2014: Return to top 100 After inconsistent results on the WTA Tour, Dulgheru did very well in ITF tournaments, winning in Marseille and Dubai, and making semifinals in Campinas. The points she gathered made her climb up to No. 83 in the rankings by the end of year. 2015: Finalist in Kuala Lumpur and top 50 again Dulgheru started her season at the Shenzhen Open. She lost in the first round to Saisai Zheng. In Sydney, she was defeated in the second round of qualifying by Kristina Mladenovic. At the Australian Open, she lost in the first round to Australian Jarmila Gajdošová. In February, Dulgheru reached the final round of qualifying at the Dubai Championships where she was defeated by Mirjana Lučić-Baroni. Getting past qualifying in Qatar, she retired during her second-round match against third seed Caroline Wozniacki due to an upper respiratory tract infection. After she recovered from the respiratory infection, she recovered soon and made it to her third WTA Tour final of her career at the Malaysian Open. She lost the final to top seed Caroline Wozniacki. This brought her to be 72nd in the WTA rankings. Following this performance, she entered the Miami Open and qualified for the event but lost in the first round to Elena Vesnina. Dulgheru began her clay-court season in Charleston where she again lost in the first round to Ajla Tomljanović. She then played for Romania at the 2015 Fed Cup World Group Play-offs and won both matches against Françoise Abanda and world No. 7, Eugenie Bouchard. Dulgheru then received a wildcard for the Madrid Open but retired in the third set against former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic after taking the first set. Dulgheru had another great tournament at the Premier 5 Italian Open. She qualified for the event and defeated Misaki Doi, 12th seed Lucie Šafářová and eighth seed