Maria Kirilenko
Born: 25/01/1987
Resides: Moscow, Russia
Height: 5’8” (1.73)
Weight: 127lbs (57.6kgs)
Maria Kirilenko was introduced to tennis when she was seven by her father, Yuri, who is also her coach. Jennifer Capriati was the female tennis player she most admired when she was growing up. Maria is loves most sports, in particular soccer, is well read and is fluent in Russian and English.
Maria debuted on the ITF circuit in 2001 playing two events in Croatia, she lost second round at both.
Maria Kirilenko had a very good junior tennis career winning the
2002 Junior US Open and Junior Canadian Open.
2002 was also the year she played a main tour event qualifying for
the Japan Open and Pattaya City.
2003 she won her first pro title at ITF Boca Raton. Played qualifying
event for Wimbledon and after winning ITF Bronx made her grand slam
debut at the US Open.
2004 finished the year at career best 84. Reached first tour final
at Hyderabad, qualified by ranking and reached second round at Roland
Garros losing to Serena Williams 6/4 in the third set after leading
4/2. Lost first round at Wimbledon, second round at the US Open.
Kirilenko won her first Tour tennis doubles title (w/Sharapova)
at Birmingham and won her second career ITF $50,000 at Saint Gaudins.
2005 Kirilenko played her first Australian Open. Hyderabad (finalist
04) has been a good tennis tournament this year she got to the semi
final taking her ranking to a career best No.73. She defeated Schnyder
(14 WTA) in Doha her biggest scalp and moves ranking to No.67
Indian Wells, as a qualifier she gets to the fourth round, her best
Tier I performance, Kirilenko also gets to the semi final of the
doubles event. After getting to the second round at Miami Kirilenko
breaks the top 50 at No.48
She had a mixed summer losing first round at Roland Garros but recorded
her first Wimbledon victory. She also got to the final of the doubles
event in Rome with Medina Garrigues.
Kirilenko recorded her 100th career victory over Pous Tio at the
US Open before losing to Venus Williams. Nevertheless, September
got a lot better when she won her first Tour title at Beijing, defeating
No.9 seed Groenfeld 6/3 6/4 in the final. This victory took her
ranking to No.28. She continued her good form by getting to the
semi finals at Tokyo (Japan Open), she also won the doubles with
Dulko.
Maria Kirilenko has a very bright future. We are proud to offer procomparetennis.net members some great tennis video clips and frame-by-frame photo sequences of her while she was practising for the grass court season in England. The tennis video clips really highlight how smooth her forehand, backhand and serve actions are. They are great teaching/learning tools.
