Misaki Doi


Misaki Doi is a Japanese professional tennis player. She is left-handed and uses a two-handed backhand. Her highest WTA rankings are 30 in singles and 78 in doubles.
Doi reached two junior Grand Slam doubles finals – at Wimbledon in 2007 with Kurumi Nara, and at the Australian Open in 2008, with Elena Bogdan. She has made it to three WTA tournament finals. She is managed by Muse Group, a sports marketing agency based in Tokyo.

Junior career

Doi began playing tennis at the age of three. She first distinguished herself in tennis as a middle-school student, reaching the semifinals of the All Japan Middle School Tennis Championships in both 2004 and 2006 and joining the ITF Junior Circuit in 2006. In 2007, while enrolled as a freshman in Sundai Kōei High School, Doi earned second place in the Japan Open Junior Championships in Nagoya.
A highlight of Doi's junior career was her successful doubles partnership with age-mate Kurumi Nara. They placed second in girls' doubles at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships, becoming only the second Japanese pair to reach the finals of a Grand Slam juniors event since Yuka Yoshida and Hiroko Mochizuki at the 1993 US Open. Doi and Nara continued their run by advancing to the girls' doubles semifinals at a number of high-profile tournaments, such as the 2007 US Open and Wimbledon 2008. Doi also teamed with Romanian Elena Bogdan to place second in girls' doubles at the 2008 Australian Open. This flurry of successes catapulted Doi to No. 3 in Japan's under-18 tennis rankings for 2007; she had been recognized early on as one of Japan's rising stars in junior tennis.
2008 marked Doi's first participation in senior ITF Women's Circuit events. She partnered with Kurumi Nara again for the 2008 ITF event in Miyazaki, where they upset top-seeded sisters Erika and Yurika Sema 3–6, 6–3, in the second round. Doi and Nara went on to triumph over Kimiko Date-Krumm and Tomoko Yonemura in the finals.

Professional career

2006–09: First ITF title and qualifiers on WTA Tour

Doi officially turned pro in June 2006, at the age of 15. In 2009, she focused primarily on Japanese tournaments, where she earned two first-place and two second-place finishes in singles and one second-place result in doubles. In March 2009, she won her first ITF title at the $10,000 Kofu event. In October, she made her tour debut in the qualifiers of the HP Open, falling to American Abigail Spears in the second qualifying round. Doi was seeded sixth in the women's singles draw of November's All Japan Tennis Championships. She lost in straight sets to Akiko Morigami in the round of 16. Her performance in 2009's events lifted Doi from a year-opening ranking of No. 613 to a year-end mark of No. 199 and a place among the top 10-players in Japanese tennis.

2010: First Grand Slam qualification

In 2010, Doi began playing professional tournaments outside Japan. She appeared in the women's singles qualifiers for that year's Australian Open. Doi then made appearances at several circuit tournaments, placing second in singles at Irapuato, Mexico in March. In doubles, she recorded three second-place finishes in as many weeks in April tournaments at Incheon, Gimhae, and Changwon, South Korea, with partner Junri Namigata. With new partner Kotomi Takahata, Doi won her first $50,000 ITF title in doubles at the Fukuoka tournament in May, defeating Marina Erakovic and Alexandra Panova in straight sets.
Her success continued in the qualifying rounds of the French Open, where she defeated Mandy Minella and upset Michelle Larcher de Brito to reach the qualifier finals. With her victory over Vitalia Diatchenko, Doi had earned a spot in her first major tournament main draw, where she lost to Polona Hercog in the first round. She finished the year with a first-place performance in the All Japan Tennis Championships women's singles.

2011: First Grand Slam main-draw win

Doi's Grand Slam results improved in 2011, when she qualified for Wimbledon and had her first win in Grand Slam tournament against Bethanie Mattek-Sands. She went on to defeat Zheng Jie before losing in the third round to Sabine Lisicki.

2012: First quarterfinal on the WTA Tour

The Aegon Classic was Doi's first appearance in the quarterfinals of a singles tour event, which she reached by defeating the top seed Francesca Schiavone in two sets. Although Doi lost in the Wimbledon qualifiers to Kristina Mladenovic, she received a lucky loser berth in the main tournament. She was defeated by her first-round opponent Arantxa Rus.
After failing to qualify for the main draws of the US Open and Pan Pacific Open, Doi found success at the HP Open, where she defeated Chanelle Scheepers in three sets to reach her first tour semifinal.

2013: Main-draw appearance at all Grand Slam tournaments

2013 marked the first year in which Doi qualified for all four Grand Slam tournaments. In the Australian Open, she reached the second round after a 6–3, 6–4 victory over Petra Martić before losing 0–6, 0–6 to Maria Sharapova. She lost in the first round in the other three Grand Slam events. At the French Open she faced Madison Keys; at Wimbledon Sílvia Soler Espinosa; and at the US Open Petra Kvitová.

2016: Best ranking so far, reaching the last 16 of Wimbledon

At the Australian Open, Doi played the seventh seed Angelique Kerber in the first round, winning the first set and holding a match point in the second-set tie-break before eventually losing in three sets. Kerber went on to win the title. On 16 May, she achieved a new career-high ranking of 38 after a quarterfinal appearance in Rome. Doi then competed at the Aegon Classic, losing to Johanna Konta. Doi reached the last 16 of Wimbledon, beating Louisa Chirico, Karolína Plíšková and Anna-Lena Friedsam before losing to Kerber in straight sets. She was the first Japanese player to reach the fourth round of the ladies draw since Ai Sugiyama ten years earlier.

Personal

Doi is coached by Christian Zahalka since April 2015. Her most admired players are Justine Henin and Shingo Kunieda. She uses a Srixon racquet and ASICS shoes, prefers to play on hard courts, and favors her forehand and serve.

Performance timelines

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.

Singles

Current through the suspension of the 2020 WTA Tour.
Notes
''To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded.
Tournament20132014201520162017SRW–L
Australian Open1R1RA1R1R0 / 40–4
French Open2RAA2R1R0 / 32–3
WimbledonAA1R2R2R0 / 32–3
US OpenA2RA1R2R0 / 32–3
Win-Loss1–21–20–12–42–40 / 136–13

WTA career finals

Singles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups)

ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScore
Win1–02015 BGL Luxembourg Open – Singles|Luxembourg Open, LuxembourgInternationalHard Mona Barthel
Loss1–1Taiwan Open, TaiwanInternationalHard4–6, 2–6
Loss1–22019 Japan Women's Open – Singles|Japan Women's Open, JapanInternationalHard Nao Hibino3–6, 2–6

Doubles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScore
Win1–02014 İstanbul Cup – Doubles|İstanbul Cup, TurkeyInternationalHard Elina Svitolina Oksana Kalashnikova
Paula Kania
6–4, 6–0
Loss1–12015 Japan Women's Open – Doubles|Japan Women's Open, JapanInternationalHard Kurumi Nara Chan Yung-jan
Chan Hao-ching
1–6, 2–6
Win2–12019 Japan Women's Open – Doubles|Japan Women's Open, JapanInternationalHard Nao Hibino Christina McHale
Valeria Savinykh
3–6, 6–4,

WTA 125K series finals

Singles: 4 (2 titles, 2 runners-up)

Doubles: 3 (3 titles)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 9 (6 titles, 3 runner–ups)

ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScore
Win1–0Mar 2009ITF Kōfu, Japan10,000Hard Erika Sema7–5, 6–2
Win2–0Jul 2009ITF Tokyo, Japan10,000Carpet Sachie Ishizu6–1, 6–4
Loss2–1Sep 2009ITF Makinohara, Japan25,000Carpet Hsieh Su-wei6–2, 5–7, 6–7
Loss2–2Oct 2009ITF Tokachi, Japan25,000Carpet Tomoko Yonemura4–6, 6–7
Loss2–3Mar 2010ITF Irapuato, Mexico25,000Hard Monique Adamczak6–7, 6–2, 2–6
Win3–3Nov 2010ITF Toyota, Japan75,000Carpet Junri Namigata7–5, 6–2
Win4–3Apr 2014ITF Seoul, South Korea50,000Hard Misa Eguchi6–1, 7–6
Win5–3Jan 2015ITF Hong Kong, China S.A.R.50,000Hard Zhang Kailin6–3, 6–3
Win6–3Aug 2018ITF Vancouver, Canada100,000Hard Heather Watson6–7, 6–1, 6–4

Doubles: 10 (4 titles, 6 runner–ups)

ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScore
Win1–0Jul 2008ITF Miyazaki, Japan25,000Carpet Kurumi Nara Kimiko Date-Krumm
Tomoko Yonemura
4–6, 6–3,
Loss1–1May 2009ITF Gifu, Japan50,000Carpet Kurumi Nara Sophie Ferguson
Aiko Nakamura
2–6, 1–6
Loss1–2Apr 2010ITF Incheon, South Korea25,000Hard Junri Namigata Irina-Camelia Begu
Erika Sema
0–6, 6–7
Loss1–3Apr 2010ITF Gimhae, South Korea25,000Hard Junri Namigata Chang Kyung-mi
Lee Jin-a
6–1, 4–6,
Loss1–4Apr 2010ITF Changwon, Korea25,000Hard Junri Namigata Chang Kyung-mi
Lee Jin-a
7–5, 3–6,
Win2–4May 2010ITF Fukuoka, Japan50,000Grass Kotomi Takahata Marina Erakovic
Alexandra Panova
6–4, 6–4
Loss2–5Jul 2013ITF Beijing, China75.000Hard Miki Miyamura Liu Chang
Zhou Yimiao
6–7, 4–6
Win3–5Nov 2013ITF Toyota, Japan75.000Carpet Shuko Aoyama Eri Hozumi
Makato Ninomiya
7–6, 2–6,
Loss3–6May 2014ITF Gifu, Japan75.000Hard Hsieh Shu-ying Jarmila Gajdošová
Arina Rodionova
3–6, 3–6
Win4–6Feb 2018ITF Surprise, United States25,000Hard Yanina Wickmayer Jacqueline Cako
Caitlin Whoriskey
2–6, 6–3,

Wins over top 10-players