FORMER Ilkley Trophy winner Evgeniya Rodina’s hopes of returning to play there this summer have been scuppered by the Lawn Tennis Association’s ban on Russian players.

The 33-year-old seemed prepared to come out of retirement so that she could again play at Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club, where she won the last of her 13 International Tennis Federation titles six years ago.

Rodina, world ranked 120, was seeded second when she beat qualifier Rebecca Sramkova (Slovakia) 6-4, 6-4 in the Ilkley Trophy final in 2016.

Anita Perry, who is in charge of player accommodation for the Trophy, revealed: “Evgeniya normally stays with a club member and had been in touch with her about coming back.”

Rodina also played at Ilkley in 2017, when, as the fourth seed, she lost 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 the first round to the hard-serving Denisa Allertova (Czech Republic), and in 2018 when, as an unseeded player, the Russian reached the quarter-finals before losing to surprise packet Abigail Tere-Apisah (Papua New Guinea).

On her way to the last eight, Rodina, who married her coach Denis Shteyngart and with whom she has a nine-year-old daughter, defeated future Grand Slam winner Bianca Andreescu (Canada) 6-3, 6-2 in the second round.

Rodina retired from the WTA and ITF tours in 2019.

The ban also applies to Belarusian players, and several players from both there and Russia have played at Ilkley before going on to achieve world-wide fame.

For example, current Australian Open champion Danill Medvedev qualified at Ilkley before losing in the second round in 2015, while world No 5 Aryana Sabalenka, a former Wimbledon and US Open semi-finalist, lost in the first round at Ilkley in 2017.

Among Russians to have done well at Ilkley are Evgeny Donskoy, a semi-finalist in 2017, and Anna Blinkova and Alla Kudryavtseva, women’s doubles winner that same year.

The ban by Wimbledon and the LTA has been far from universally acclaimed, with Novak Djokovic calling it a “crazy” decision, while the governing bodies of the men’s and women’s games have called it unfair.

A spokesperson for Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club confirmed the ban at Ilkley only impacts players, not coaches or officials.