Jarmila Wolfe (née Gajdošová, formerly Groth; born 26 April 1987) is a Slovak-Australian former tennis player.
In her career, she won two singles titles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour, as well as 14 singles and ten doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. She won her first WTA Tour title in 2006, emerging as the Nordic Light Open doubles champion, her first singles title came in 2010 at the Guangzhou International Open, and the following year she won the Hobart International. In May 2011, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 25. In August 2012, she peaked at No. 31 in the doubles rankings. Her greatest achievement came at the 2013 Australian Open, where she won the mixed-doubles title with countryman Matthew Ebden.
Personal life Wolfe's father Ján Gajdoš is an engineer, as was her mother who died in September 2012; her older brother Ján Gajdoš Jr. was a professional skier. She married Australian tennis player Sam Groth in February 2009 and competed as Jarmila Groth from 2009 to 2011. When the couple divorced in 2011, Wolfe reverted to her birth name.Adopted Australian tennis star hurt by online abuse, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 September 2011. Following her marriage on 1 November 2015 to Adam Wolfe, from January 2016 on she was competing as Jarmila Wolfe. In November 2017, Wolfe gave birth to their first child, Natalia Jarmila Wolfe.
Juniors Although she had already been playing in senior events for some years by the time, the highlights of her junior career came as she reached the semifinals at two junior Grand Slam tournaments. In the 2003 Wimbledon junior competition she lost in semifinal to the eventual winner Kirsten Flipkens. In the Australian Open junior competition, 2004, she reached semifinals in both singles and doubles (with Shahar Pe'er). Both times she lost to Nicole Vaidišová. Another success came in winning doubles at the Italian Open junior tournament in 2003 with Andrea Hlaváčková.
Professional
2001–2003 Wolfe began competing as Jarmila Gajdošová on the ITF Women's Circuit just days after her 14th birthday in 2001, and that year entered three ITF tournaments, winning two matches and losing three. In 2002, she again entered only three tournaments, but this time won four matches and lost three.
Early in 2003, still aged 15, she stepped up her schedule, and that February she reached the semifinal of a $25k tournament at Redbridge, defeating Séverine Beltrame, Sandra Klösel, and Roberta Vinci before losing to Olga Barabanschikova. She won the next tournament she entered, her third of the year and only the ninth of her career. It was the $10k event at Rabat in March; and in the semifinal she defeated Ekaterina Bychkova. On the strength of this result, she found herself wildcarded into qualifying for her first WTA Tour event, a clay-court tournament at Budapest in April, and justified the wildcard by defeating all three of her opponents in the qualifying draw, including Melinda Czink, in straight sets, then Virginie Razzano in the second round of the main draw, before losing 4–6, 3–6 to Alicia Molik.
On her 16th birthday she entered qualifying for a $50k event on grass at Gifu, Japan. Again, she qualified defeating Aiko Nakamura in the qualifying round; and she reached the second round of the main draw before losing to another top Japanese player, Akiko Morigami. The next week, she came through three straight matches in qualifying at her third successive event, another Japanese $50k grass-court tournament at Fukuoka, defeating Sanda Mamić of Croatia in the qualifying round, before advancing to the quarterfinal of the main draw after a second-round victory over Zheng Jie, only to lose to Saori Obata.
At the US Open in August, she reached the final round of qualifying with upset of Anabel Medina Garrigues, but ultimately lost to Anikó Kapros of Hungary. Her season ended with two more losses in the later stages of qualifying draws at WTA events to higher ranked players. The 16-year-old Slovak ended the year ranked No. 197.
2004–2005 In 2004, she suffered six successive losses between August and October. Earlier in the season she scored wins over Lilia Osterloh and Tzipora Obziler in qualifying for Memphis, Akiko Morigami and Tiffany Dabek at Fukuoka, Zuzana Ondrášková in Wimbledon qualifying, and Elena Baltacha in a $50k event at Lexington, while her performance in reaching the final of the $50k event at Fukuoka was her career-best in a tournament of its class. Her year-end ranking was world No. 217.
In February 2005, she qualified for the annual WTA Tour event at Hyderabad, and beat Li Ting in the first round of the main draw, before losing to Anna-Lena Grönefeld of Germany. She did not play in March or April, but returned in May to win her first $25k event and her second career tournament on the clay of Catania, Italy beating Ivana Abramović of Croatia in the final. The following week, she reached the quarterfinal of another $50k event at Saint-Gaudens, France beating Argentine María Emilia Salerni and French player Pauline Parmentier to this end. She entered qualifying at the French Open, and defeated Shikha Uberoi but lost to Sofia Arvidsson in the second leg.
Over May and June, the 18-year-old suffered two consecutive losses in $25k tournaments to Yuan Meng. She was able to win her second $25k tournament of the year and third career title on the grass courts of Felixstowe in July, beating Katie O'Brien in the semifinal and Alla Kudryavtseva in the final. The following week, she reached the semifinals of the $50k event at Vittel, France with wins over German player Jana Kandarr and her countrywoman Sandra Klösel.
For the second successive summer, she experienced several consecutive early defeats. But in late September she defeated Alona Bondarenko, Kateryna Bondarenko, and María Emilia Salerni to qualify for the WTA Tour event at Luxembourg, in the first round of which she defeated Katarina Srebotnik in two close sets before losing to Dinara Safina. She had improved her year-end ranking to No. 147.
2006: Top 100 breakthrough and WTA Tour doubles titles The 18-year-old Gajdošová came through the qualifying draw to gain entry to her first Grand Slam tournament main draw at the Australian Open. She then lost a close three set first-round match to Martina Müller. But the ranking points accrued were sufficient to lift her to world No. 117 on 6 February 2006.
Staying in Australia for the rest of the month, she retreated temporarily to the ITF Circuit, winning two $25k tournaments in consecutive weeks, at Gosford and Sydney, the fourth and fifth ITF singles titles of her career. These two minor tournament victories resulted in her ranking rising to No. 106.
In mid-March, she followed up these two tournament victories by entering another $25k event at Canberra, and again came through as the victor, defeating world No. 178, Hanna Nooni, in the semifinals and Australian Monique Adamczak in the final.
The next week, she extended her winning streak to seventeen matches in reaching the quarterfinals of a $25k event in Melbourne, but then lost to Australian world No. 260 Sophie Ferguson, 1–6, 4–6. She had succeeded in breaking through into the WTA top 100 for the first time in her career.
In April, staying at the $25k tournament level that had recently brought her so much success, she reached another semifinal at Patras, Greece (losing in three sets to Estonian world No. 240, Margit Rüütel), but only reached the second-round at Bari, Italy, before retiring when trailing upcoming French player Alizé Cornet 6–0, 4–1.
In early May she decided to return to the WTA Tour, entering qualifying for the Tier I German Open in Berlin while ranked world No. 94. However, she lost in three sets in the second round of the qualifying draw to Ukrainian world No. 147, Julia Vakulenko. The next week, she lost in the first round of qualifying for the Tier I Italian Open in Rome to world No. 115, Victoria Azarenka, in straight sets.
At the end of the month, entering a major tournament as a direct entrant for the first time at the French Open, as world No. 100, she defeated lower-ranked wildcard Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro, before losing in straight sets to world No. 9, Patty Schnyder, in round two.
The following week, in early June, she entered a $75k event at Prostějov in the Czech Republic and defeated two Czech players in succession, world No. 31, Lucie Šafářová, and world No. 239, Renata Voráčová, before losing in the quarterfinals to in-form Italian Romina Oprandi, in straight sets.
Buoyed by her career-best ranking of world No. 86, she reached the second round of the Tier III tournament at Birmingham with a straight-sets win over Yuan Meng, before losing to Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama. She then came through three rounds of qualifying in straight sets at Eastbourne, a Tier II tournament, with wins over Stéphanie Foretz, Galina Voskoboeva and Samantha Stosur but lost in the first round of the main draw to Russian former world No. 2, Anastasia Myskina. A week later, as a direct entrant at Wimbledon, she lost to Australian Nicole Pratt in the first round.
At the $50k event in Vittel, France she won the event, beating Frenchwoman Olivia Sanchez. Her ranking rose to No. 86. However, in the Tier IV tournament in Budapest the following week, she lost in the first round to fellow Slovak Martina Suchá.
As a direct entrant to the main draw of the US Open, she reached the third round with straight-sets victories over Alexa Glatch and the Viktoriya Kutuzova, before succumbing to Dinara Safina, 3–6, 0–6. As a result, her ranking leapt to No. 65.
Despite an uninspired finish to 2006, she finished the year ranked world No. 71.
2007 She began the new season, still in Australia, at the end of December 2006, by narrowly failing to qualify for Gold Coast. Then in qualifying for Hobart in January, she fell at the first hurdle to Klára Zakopalová in straight sets. And as a direct entrant to the Australian Open, she lost in round one to Venezuelan Milagros Sequera, also in straight sets.
In February, she managed to pull together a string of back-to-back victories in a $75k tournament at Las Vegas, with wins over Kristina Barrois, Ahsha Rolle and Tatiana Poutchek, before bowing out to Akiko Morigami in the semifinals.
In March, as a direct entrant to the Tier I Indian Wells Open, ranked world No. 90, she lost in the first round to Caroline Wozniacki. Then she came through qualifying for Miami with a straight-sets wins over Kristina Barrois and Anne Kremer, before losing a close two-setter in the first round of the main draw to Catalina Castaño of Colombia. And in the first round of the main draw of the Tier II fixture at Amelia Island, her ranking having slipped back to world No. 99, she was defeated by American Alexa Glatch, also in straight sets.
In May, ranked No. 95, she reached the quarterfinals of the Tier IV WTA Prague Open with straight-sets victories over Anastasia Rodionova and Sandra Klösel, before losing to Marion Bartoli. At the end of the month, in the first round, she lost to Andrea Petkovic at the French Open.
In June at Wimbledon, she defeated Meghann Shaughnessy, before losing to Jelena Janković in round two, 1–6, 1–6. She returned to action in mid-August in Canada, again ranked No. 105, and attempted to qualify for the Tier I Canadian Open, but lost to Flavia Pennetta. Her only other tournament that month was the US Open, where she again faced Jelena Janković, this time losing 2–6, 6–7.
The Slovak would play only four more tournaments that season, recording her sole victory in the first round of the Tier III event at Kolkata, India against Youlia Fedossova of France in mid-September. Her ranking was No. 142 by the end of the year.
2008