Rossana Neffa de los Rios (born 16 September 1975) is a retired tennis player from Paraguay. She was born in the Paraguayan capital, Asunción, and now resides in Miami, Florida, with her daughter Ana Paula Neffa de los Ríos, who is also a professional tennis player, and her husband Gustavo Neffa, a retired Paraguayan Association football player who played for Boca Juniors. De los Ríos achieved a career-high WTA rankings of No. 51 in singles and 52 in doubles. She played doubles with Grand Slam champions such as Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, as well as Jelena Janković and Dinara Safina. She is also a former world number one junior player, having won the 1992 Roland Garros Juniors event. De los Ríos participated in six editions of the (1994, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2009 and 2010) of the Australian Open. She was the only female tennis representative for Paraguay in the 1992 and 2000 Olympic Games. De los Ríos was also in Paraguay's Fed Cup team in 1991 and 1992, and the Pan American team in 1999.
Career
1989–1994
As a 14-year-old, de los Ríos played just three matches, and won the first match of her career on the ITF circuit in São Paulo. In 1990, she played twelve matches, winning six of them. In May 1991, she won her first ever ITF title, in Francaville, and the next month lost the final in Modena. In September, she won her second ITF title, in Lima, without dropping a set; her win–loss record for the year was 40–18. The following year, she won her third title, in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in October, where she beat Silvia Farina Elia. The following week she reached the final in Asunción, and then the final in Mildura. Her win–loss record for the year was 34–19. As well as being the world number-one junior in 1992 and winning the 1992 Junior French Open, beating Paola Suárez 6–4, 6–0 in the final.
At the 1992 Summer Olympics, she would meet her future partner, Gustavo Neffa, who was at the tournament representing the Paraguay national under-23 football team whilst they were representing Paraguay's tennis team.
In 1993, she made the final in Caserta in June as she turned professional. As the world number 118, she caused a big upset at the Puerto Rican Open by defeating top seed and world number 30, Brenda Schultz-McCarthy in the first round, finishing the year with 20 wins and 18 losses. In 1994, she only played until April, and won only two of ten matches before retiring to start a family.
1995–1999
De los Ríos married Gustavo Neffa in 1994, and gave birth to Ana-Paula on January 17, 1997. With the marriage, she suspended her career until 1999-2000 when she returned to the WTA Tour in June 1999, after a five-year absence. In just her fifth tournament back, she won her fifth ITF title, in Buenos Aires, dropping just nine games in five matches. Her win–loss record for the year was 31–9.
2000
The year 2000 was the most successful year on the WTA Tour for de los Ríos. She won 22 out of 29 matches between March and June on the ITF circuit. In June, Rossana easily qualified for the main draw of the French Open, losing just eleven games in three matches. In the main draw, she beat Miroslava Vavrinec in the first round and Marlene Weingartner in the second round, before upsetting the world number ten, Amanda Coetzer, in three sets. She then fell to fellow qualifier Marta Marrero, the first time two qualifiers met in the fourth round of the French Open. In July, Rossana qualified for Wimbledon but was defeated by Tamarine Tanasugarn. After that, she won only one of her next five matches. Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, de los Ríos and track athlete Edgar Baumann were left out of the delegation, confirmed by Ramón Zubizarreta, the president of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee. At the Games, she defeated Květa Peschke 6–3, 6–0 in the first round and Lindsay Davenport w/o. Jelena Dokić defeated them in the third round. De los Ríos finished the year with her return to the ITF circuit which saw them win 12 of her next 17 matches, including the finals at Miramar and Pittsburgh. In 2000, she won 45 matches and lost 21.