Maria Kirilenko

Maria Yuryevna Kirilenko is a Russian professional tennis player who as of August 2012, has reached a career high singles ranking of number 12. Kirilenko was honoured as one of the youngest winners of the Canadian Open and US Open junior tournaments in 2002. By then she had already started participating in WTA events and was slowly moving up the ranks. In 2004, Kirilenko became the runner-up to Nicole Pratt at the AP Tourism Hyderabad Open. She made her Russian debut at the Fed Cup tournament in April 2006. The next year she won her second WTA Tour singles title, defeating unseeded Mariya Koryttseva of Ukraine. In 2008, she impressed the crowd by winning the Tier IV event at Estoril and her fourth career WTA title in Barcelona. In 2011, Kirilenko competed at the Hong Kong Tennis Classic and won the Gold Group Championship. At the 2012 Summer Olympics Kirilenko won a bronze medal in Women\'s Doubles with Nadia Petrova after beating the no. 1 ranked team of Lisa Raymond and Liezel Huber.