Tennis: Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan got Comeback Of The Year award

Kazakhstan tennis professional Yaroslava Shvedova was awarded as the best Comeback Player of the Year, Vesti.kz reports. Shvedova injured her knee in the beginning of 2011 and had a surgery that prevented he from showing her best results similar to those she demonstrated in 2010. She finished her last season ranked 206th in the Women Tennis Association (WTA) rating. However, Kazakhstan's Shvedova made an impressive comeback showing excellent results in the Grand Slam and reached the 29th line of the rating by the year end. She won over China’s Li Na in the fourth round of the 2012 French Open. Later on she said that it was the most incredible victory she’d ever had in her career. She also made it into the quarterfinals of the tournament and repeated her own success of 2010. However, Kazakhstan tennis professional yielded the victory to Czech Petra Kvitova in the quarterfinals of the Rolland Garros tournament. A week later, Shvedova made it into the fourth round at Wimbledon and lost to Serena Williams who later won the tournament. However, this tournament was best remembered for Kazakhstan tennis professional’s victory over Sara Errani, ranked 10th, with the score of 6:0. Shvedova didn't loose a single point in the set. Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan became the first woman since the Open Era (since 1968), who managed to play a Golden Set, i.e. to win 24 points in the game. Shvedova said she was happy to be awarded as the Best Comeback Player of the year and was proud that the media voted for her. “I was surprised when I heard the news. It's a victory for my team. But I'm not done yet! I'm going to keep working hard and my goal is to be in the Top 20 in singles, and it would be nice to be back in the Top 10 in doubles, too,” the official WTA website is citing Shvedova as saying. Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan said that making a Golden Set was her biggest highlight and added that it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so it would always be very special for her. As for the knee injury, she said that she was 100% fine, but still had to do special exercises to keep it strong. She added that hopefully she wouldn't have any more problems with it and would keep improving her game. At present Shvedova is doing her off-season training in Buenos Aires. Comeback Player Of The Year was voted for by international tennis media. Here is the list of the former winners of the WTA Comeback Of The Year Awards: 1987 Bettina Bunge 1988 Pascale Paradis 1989 Kathy Rinaldi 1990 Elizabeth Smylie 1991 Stephanie Rehe 1992 Jenny Byrne 1993 Elizabeth Smylie 1994 Meredith McGrath 1995 Monica Seles 1996 Jennifer Capriati 1997 Mary Pierce 1998 Monica Seles 2000 Iva Majoli 2001 Barbara Schwartz 2002 Corina Morariu 2003 Amélie Mauresmo 2004 Serena Williams 2005 Kim Clijsters 2006 Martina Hingis 2007 Lindsay Davenport 2008 Zheng Jie 2009 Kim Clijsters 2010 Justine Henin 2011 Sabine Lisicki