Maria kirilienko russian tennis star

Maria Yuryevna Kirilenko
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 20 September 2010, Kirilenko is ranked World No. 24.

Maria Kirilenko started showing a passion towards tennis at age 5, but it was difficult to get the practice in while she was attending school. Her father enrolled her in a tennis school, and hours of fierce 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.

All the next year Elena watched Maria making progress and then offered to work together with her.

A three-year program was made and a special team was selected. In less than three years Maria became the number one in her age group and the number two in the group under eighteen.

In 2002, Kirilenko started participating in WTA events. She began moving up in the rankings but was then 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 on the World Group Quarter-Final tie against Belgium. Maria lost a singles rubber against 2005 US Open champion Kim Clijsters and won her doubles rubber against multiple major champion Justine Henin and the same Kim Clijsters partnering Dinara Safina.

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.
2008
At the Australian Open, Kirilenko reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career, by beating No. 6 seed Anna Chakvetadze. Her next opponent was Daniela Hantuchová, to whom she lost in the fourth round 1–6, 6–4, 6–4, after leading 6–1, 3–1.
2009
Kirilenko was seeded 27th at the Australian Open. She lost in the first round to unseeded Sara Errani of Italy 6–0, 6–4 in the tournament's first upset.
In the Dubai doubles tournament, Kirilenko partnered Agnieszka Radwańska and even though they were unseeded, they reached the final, eventually losing to Liezel Huber and Cara Black, the world number one doubles pairing
In 2006, Kirilenko was selected to be the face of Adidas by Stella McCartney tennis range, designed by noted British fashion designer Stella McCartney and has played exclusively in the gear since the 2006 Australian Open.[5] In 2009, she was replaced by Caroline Wozniacki.