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Elena Baltacha

{{Infobox Tennis biography | playername = Elena Baltacha | image = | country = | residence = Enfield, Middlesex, England | datebirth = | placebirth = Kiev, Soviet Union | height = 5ft 7 (172cm) | weight = | turnedpro = 1998 | plays = Right-handed, Double-handed backhand | careerprizemoney = $372,737 | singlesrecord = 190–146 | singlestitles = 5 ITF | highestsinglesranking = No.118 (March 7 2005) | AustralianOpenresult = 3rd Round {2005} | FrenchOpenresult = LQ | Wimbledonresult = 3rd Round {2002} | USOpenresult = LQ | doublesrecord = 54–51 | doublestitles = 4 ITF | highestdoublesranking = No.213 (October 17 2005) | updated = 15 September 2008 }}

Elena Baltacha (Ukrainian: Олена Балтача; is a Ukrainian British tennis player who has played for Great Britainand Scotland. She is currently the British number 3 and ranked 135 in the world, as of 06 October 2008.

Personal life

Baltacha was born August 14, 1983 in Kiev, Ukraine. She comes from a sporting family: her father Sergei was a professional footballer, representing the USSR and playing in the United Kingdom with Ipswich Town and St Johnstone, and her mother Olga represented the USSR in both the pentathlon and heptathlon at the Olympic Games. Her brother Sergei played football for Scottish Football League First Division team St Mirren of Paisley and for Millwall.

After arriving at Heathrow Airport on January 13, 1989, Elena moved to Ipswich where her father Sergei was to play football for the next year before moving to Scotland. The family lived in Perth where she grew up and spent her teenage years.

Currently living in Enfield, London, England, with her mother, she practices at the Hazelwood Lawn Tennis and Squash Club, in Winchmore Hill, North London, where she is coached by Alan Jones and Jo Durie. She is part of a tennis academy set up at Hazelwood, aimed at grooming talented young players into future professionals.

Career

Early career

Playing the majority of the season on the ITF tour before 2002 with her only main draw WTA tournament being at Eastbourne in 2001, Baltacha's breakthrough on the WTA tour came when she made her Grand Slam debut in 2002 with a wildcard entry at Wimbledon ranked No.295. Baltacha reached the third round defeating 32 seed Amanda Coetzer along the way, falling eventually to Elena Likhovtseva. She later went on to win her first professional tournament on the ITF tour in Pamplona and a second in Felixstowe.

2003-2004

Baltacha's career on the WTA tour went fairly fallow in 2003 despite being given a wild card entry at both Wimbledon and the Australian Open. 'Bally' failed to capitalise on these opportunities falling in the first round of both. Later on in the season she incurred problems with lower back strain which prevented her from competing and she fell outside the top 300. In 2004 she came back from injury reaching several semi finals on the ITF tour. Baltacha still managed to obtain wild cards at Birmingham and Eastbourne qualifying and Wimbledon where she defeated Marta Marrero in the first round ranked well inside the top 100 and lost to Jennifer Capriati in the second round.

2005-2006

Baltacha made a return to fitness and prominence with an equal-best Grand Slam performance at the Australian Open reaching the 3rd round, coming through qualifying and taking a scalp in the name of Katarina Srebotnik in the first round, eventually going out to No.15 seed Silvia Farina Elia. She continued the success on the ITF tour reaching the finals in Redbridge leading to Baltacha reaching her career high singles ranking of 118 in the world. Despite the early season success she failed to continue this up and defend ranking points at Wimbledon and qualify in any other WTA tour events. In 2006 Baltacha played less than 20 matches and competed in only 10 events due to a re-occurring back injury (which turned out to be a prolapsed disc) from which she took nearly a year to fully recover.

2007

After keyhole surgery in 2006 on a prolapsed back, Elena Baltacha returned in March with her ranking at 660 in the world. Playing in several ITF tournaments in Korea, she regained some form reaching a couple of quarter finals.

At the International Women's Open in Eastbourne reaching the last 16 from qualifying, defeating compatriot Anne Keothavong in the 1st round of the main draw, then falling to Nicole Vaidisova (ranked 14) 6–3 6–2.

At Wimbledon Baltacha entered by wild card, she lost in the first round to Katarina Srebotnik. Though it was a competitive match with the first set going to a tie break, Baltacha fought back to take the second. In the end Katarina's form and considerable experience told, and she defeated Baltacha 7–6(4) 3–6 6–2.

She reached the quarter finals at $50000 Lexington, Kentucky ITF tournament, losing to 7th seed Julie Ditty. Then she was defeated at the $75000 Washington ITF tournament in the first round by 2nd seed Olga Savchuk in three sets 3–6 6–3 6–4. Despite this Elena Baltacha's ranking rose to 245th in the world.

An early loss in the U.S. Open qualifying to Evgeniya Rodina in straight sets 6–2 6–4, was disappointing though Rodina was ranked nearly 100 places above her.

After taking a few weeks break, Baltacha returned to the tour at the AIG Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo. In qualifying for this WTA Tier III event she qualified for the main draw. After taking out the number one seed Ma. Emilia Salerni 6–3 6–3 and ninth seed Agnes Szatmari 6–1 6–0 on route. In the first round Baltacha fought well to overcome Yan Zi of China in three sets 2–6 6–2 6–4 , however in the next round she was defeated by fifth seed and eventual tournament champion Virginie Razzano 6–2 6–2. Though this marked the first main draw WTA tour win outside of Britain for Baltacha since the Australian Open in 2005. Despite this Baltacha then failed to qualify for Bangkok PTT and competed back on the ITF tour in Japan for the final few weeks of the 2007 season.

In the ITF tournaments in Japan she reached the semi-finals in Makinohara and the quarter finals in Hamanako however she withdrew from the tournament before the match and later withdrew herself from Taoyuan, a $50,000 ITF tournament, though reasons were never specified.

Baltacha finished the year back inside the worlds top 200.

2008

Baltacha started her season on the WTA tour in Auckland by qualifying through 3 rounds and defeating her compatriot Melanie South on the way. In the main draw she played 7th seed Eleni Daniilidou, Baltacha was overcome by the former Auckland champion in straight sets 6–1 6–2.

Baltacha then headed for Australian Open Qualifying where, in the first round she demolished Virginie Pichet in the first set and in the second the French woman retired with the score at 6–0 3–2. In the next round she went out to higher ranked Shuai Zhang of China 6–4 6–1.

Baltacha competed in the doubles matches for Great Britain in the Fed cup in the Euro/Africa Zone. They finished bottom of the pool with narrow losses to Hungary, Denmark and Switzerland. This forced a relegation tie against Portugal which they won 2–0, securing their place in Euro/Africa Zone 2009.

Baltacha competed in the WTA Tier 1 qualifying in Doha. In the first round she was leading Olga Poutchkova 6–1 3–0, when her opponent retired, and she reached the final round of qualifying where she played Tiantian Sun. With the score at 4–6 6–4 5–5 in a tight third set, she was forced to retire due to injury. Baltacha competed in Dubai qualifying where she had a tough draw against top seed(Q) Agnieszka Radwanska, going out 6–1 6–2.

In late March, Baltacha competed on the ITF tour for the first time in 2008 and did so with great success. Baltacha won the $25,000 Jersey event defeating Ana Vrljic in the final 6-3 6-1, this being her first title for nearly three years. The following week Baltacha competed at the $75,000 ITF tournament in Torhout, Belgium. She took out sixth seeded Petra Kvitova, then went on to reach the final, taking out higher ranked opponent Nika Ozegovic on route. Remarkably she went on to beat fourth seed and former top 35 player Iveta Benesova in three sets, 6-7(5) 6-1 6-4, to win her most prestigious tournament to date.

Baltacha began her clay court season in Morocco at the WTA Tier IV tournament in Fes. In the first round she faced former top 35 player Sesil Karatantcheva, squandering a early 3-1 lead Baltacha was then sent out in straight sets 7-5 6-2 . Baltacha moved onto the $75,000 tournament in Zagreb where she retired in the second round, where she was supposed to play Evgeniya Rodina. Her last clay tournament of the season was the French Open qualifying event, she went out in straight sets to Oxana Lyubtsova.

Baltacha began the grass court season at the ITF tournament in Surbiton, she reached the last sixteen before falling to veteran Tamarine Tanasugarn 7-5(5) 6-1. Then she obtained a wildcard into the maindraw to Birmingham, a WTA tournament, but lost in tight sets to Ekaterina Makarova. The following week she entered the qualifying for Eastbourne, defeating compatriot Naomi Cavaday in the opening round 6-2 6-4. However, in the next round against Tsvetana Pironkova, Baltacha was forced to retire with a back injury after losing the first set 7-5. At Wimbledon 2008, Baltacha was given a wildcard into the maindraw, drawn against Angelique Kerber, and won the game after having to come back from 2-4 down in the final set, to take the match 6-3 2-6 7-5. She lost in the second round, however, to an eventual semi-finalist Zheng Jie in straight sets 6-3 7-5, despite having set points in the second set.

Elena then fell in the first round in her next three tournaments in the lead up to the US Open. In qualifying at Stanford to Abigail Spears and then in the $50,000 ITF tournaments in Lexington and the Bronx. In the US Open qualifying Elena Baltacha defeated Anna Korzeniak (7-6 5-7 6-0) and Carly Gullickson (6-1 6-7 6-2) before losing to Julie Coin of France (5-7 6-2 6-7) in the final round.

Career Highlights

Titles

Singles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in final	Score
1.	July 2002	ITF Felixstowe $25,000	Grass	Kelly Liggan	4–6 6–2 6–3
2.	July 2002	ITF Pamplona $25,000	Hard	Virginie Pichet	6–2 6–1
3.	October 2005	ITF Jersey $25,000	Hard	Daniella Kix	6–4 6–4
4.	March 2008	ITF Jersey $25,000	Hard	Ana Vrljic	6-1 6-3
5.	April 2008	ITF Torhout $75,000	Hard	Iveta Benesova	6-7(5) 6-1 6-4

Doubles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in final	Score
1.	July 2002	ITF Valladolid $25,000	Hard	Natacha Radriantefy	Leanne Baker & Manisha Malhotra	6-2 6-3
2.	July 2002	ITF Pamplona $25,000	Hard	Kelly Liggan	Yvonne Doyle & Susanne Trik	6-7(6) 7-6(1) 6-3
3.	October 2004	ITF Sunderland $25,000	Hard	Jane O’Donoghue	Eva Fislova & Stanislava Hrozenska	6-1 4-6 6-2
4.	September 2005	ITF Glasgow $25,000	Carpet	Margit Ruutel	Anne Keothavong & Karen Paterson	6-3 6-7(2) 6-2

Runner-Up

Singles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in final	Score
1.	September 2004	ITF Jersey $25,000	Hard	Emma Laine	3-6 6-2 6-1
2.	February 2005	ITF Redbridge $25,000	Hard	Nika Ozegovic	6-0 6-3

Doubles

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in final	Score
1.	May 2001	ITF Hatfield $10,000	Clay	Nicola Trinder	Natalia Egorova & Ekaterina Sysoeva	6-3 4-6 6-1
2.	March 2006	ITF Redding $ 25,000	Hard	Yevheniia Savranska	Vasilisa Bardina & Ahsha Rolle	5-7 7-5 6-4
3.	June 2007	ITF Surbiton $25,000	Grass	Naomi Cavaday	Melanie South & Karen Paterson	6-1 6-4