Maria Kirilenko

Maria Yuryevna Kirilenko (Russian: Мари́я Ю́рьевна Кириле́нко; born in Moscow on 25 January 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player. Kirilenko won her first WTA Tour title in 2005, defeating Anna-Lena Grönefeld in the China Open. Kirilenko reached 18, her career-high singles ranking, on the WTA tour in July 2008. She won the junior event at the 2002 Canadian Open, as well as the 2002 US Open junior tournament. She has reached one Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2010 Australian Open. As of 4 July 2011, Kirilenko is ranked World No. 25.
In January 2007, she advanced to the third round of the 2007 Australian Open, before being defeated by third-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova. She then competed in the 2007 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, where she advanced to the second round upsetting World number 15 Shahar Pe'er of Israel, before being defeated by Ai Sugiyama. She then competed in the Dubai Tennis Championships in Dubai, where she reached the second round, before losing in a close match to Daniela Hantuchová.
Born in the Soviet Union of paternal Ukrainian heritage, Kirilenko is a good friend to fellow WTA players Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Ana Ivanović, Agnieszka Radwańska, and Marta Domachowska.She has been in a relationship with fellow Russian player, Igor Andreev for several years.
Maria Kirilenko started showing a passion towards tennis at age 5, but it was difficult to get practice in while still attending school. Her father enrolled her in a tennis school, and hours of training started to pay off as she won several tournaments.When Kirilenko was twelve years old, an Honored Master of sports, Elena Brioukhovets, saw her while training. Brioukhovets watched Maria making progress offered to work with her. A three-year program was made and a special team was selected. In less than three years Maria became number one in her age group and number two in the 18 and under group. The well-known tennis-players who had created an organization supporting young tennis players included Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Andrei Olhovskiy and Max Mirnyi.
In 2002, Kirilenko started participating in WTA events. She began moving up the rankings but was setback by an injury in 2004. At the end of 2005, she climbed back up the rankings and won her first title in Beijing. On 12 June 2006, she broke into the world's top 20 for the first time.Kirilenko made her debut for Russia at the nation-based Fed Cup tournament in April 2006. In the World Group Quarter-Final tie against Belgium, Kirilenko lost her singles match against 2005 US Open champion Kim Clijsters, but partnering with Dinara Safina, won her doubles match against Justine Henin and Clijsters. However, Russia ended up losing 3–2.