Magdalena Maleeva
Country (sports) | Bulgaria |
---|---|
Residence | Sofia, Bulgaria |
Height | 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) |
Turned pro | April 1989 |
Retired | October 2005 |
Plays | Right-handed (two-handed backhand) |
Prize money | $4,398,582 |
Singles | |
Career record | 439–290 |
Career titles | 10 WTA, 1 ITF |
Highest ranking | No. 4 (January 29, 1996) |
Grand Slam singles results | |
Australian Open | 4R (1991, 1993–94, 2002) |
French Open | 4R (1993, 1996, 2003–04) |
Wimbledon | 4R (2001–02, 2004–05) |
US Open | QF (1992) |
Doubles | |
Career record | 121–133 |
Career titles | 5 WTA, 1 ITF |
Highest ranking | No. 13 (February 2, 2004) |
Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgarian: Магдалена Малеева) (born April 1, 1975) is a Bulgarian former tennis player. She played on the WTA tour competing in singles and doubles, from April 1989 to June 2007. Her best position in the WTA Tour was number 4 between January 29 to February 4, 1996.
Biography
Born in Sofia, Maleeva was the youngest of the three children of Yulia Berberyan and Georgi Maleev. Yulia, who came from a prominent Armenian family which found refuge in Bulgaria after the 1896 Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire, was one of the best Bulgarian tennis players in the 1960s.[1] After she retired from professional tennis in the 1970s, Berberyan started on a coaching career. She trained all of her three daughters, Magdalena, Katerina and Manuela, each of whom eventually became WTA top six players.
In 1988 Maleeva became the youngest ever national tennis champion of Bulgaria, at the age of 13 years and four months. She turned professional in 1989, reaching the final of her first professional tournament at ITF/Bari-ITA. In her Grand Slam debut at the French Open in 1990, she passed the qualifications and reached the third round. In 1992 Maleeva snatched her first Tour event victory in San Marino. The following year she reached the fourth round at the Australian, the French and the US Open, as well as the third round of Wimbledon. That same year, she was the opponent of Monica Seles at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany when a deranged fan stabbed Seles in the back on the court. In 1995 Maleeva won a total of three tournaments – in Moscow, Chicago, Oakland, which allowed her to reach a career-high number 4 the WTA rank list in January 1996.
In June 1998 Maleeva underwent shoulder surgery, which forced her off the Tour for the next eleven months. She started competing again in May 1999 and reached Top Twenty again in 2001. In 2002 she won the prestigious Kremlin Cup in Moscow, defeating three Top Ten players on her way (Venus Williams, Amélie Mauresmo and Lindsay Davenport). In 2004 she married her long-standing boyfriend, Lubomir Nokov.
Maleeva won a career total of ten WTA Tour titles in singles and five in doubles. She is the recipient of the 1993 WTA Tour Most Improved Player Award and was nominated for the 1990 WTA Tour Most Impressive Newcomer Award. She participated at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Atlanta and Athens.
Life after tennis
In October 2005, Maleeva retired from professional tennis after 16 seasons (years), and became the last of the Maleeva sisters to retire. She now lives in Sofia, Bulgaria. On 27 June 2007, Maleeva gave birth to her first child: a girl named Julia and on December 13, 2008 she gave birth to a second child - Marko. She has been very active with the environmental organization 'Gorichka.bg', which works to create public awareness about urgent environmental problems. Maleeva also has created 'Harmonica'Harmonica, a brand for organic foods, has a couple of organic food stores in Sofia under the brand 'Biomag' and is a partner at the Maleeva tennis club.
WTA titles
Singles
Legend |
Grand Slam (0) |
WTA Championships (0) |
Tier I (2) |
Tier II (2) |
Tier III (3) |
Tier IV & V (3) |
ITF Titles (1) |
No. | Date | Tournament | Surface | Opponent in the final | Score |
1. | July 26, 1992 | San Marino, San Marino | Clay | Federica Bonsignori | 7–6(3), 6–4 |
2. | September 25, 1994 | Moscow, Russia | Carpet (I) | Sandra Cecchini | 7–5, 6–1 |
3. | October 9, 1994 | Zürich, Switzerland | Carpet (I) | Natasha Zvereva | 7–5, 3–6, 6–4 |
4. | February 12, 1995 | Chicago, United States | Carpet (I) | Lisa Raymond | 7–5, 7–6 |
5. | September 24, 1995 | Moscow, Russia | Carpet (I) | Elena Makarova | 6–4, 6–2 |
6. | November 5, 1995 | Oakland, United States | Carpet (I) | Ai Sugiyama | 6–3, 6–4 |
7. | November 21, 1999 | Pattaya City, Thailand | Hard | Anne Kremer | 4–6, 6–1, 6–2 |
8. | December 5, 1999 | Cergy-Pontoise, France | Hard (I) | Seda Noorlander | 6–1, 6–4 |
9. | April 22, 2001 | Budapest, Hungary | Clay | Anne Kremer | 3–6, 6–2, 6–4 |
10. | October 6, 2002 | Moscow, Russia | Carpet (I) | Lindsay Davenport | 5–7, 6–3, 7–6 |
11. | June 15, 2003 | Birmingham, United Kingdom | Grass | Shinobu Asagoe | 6–1, 6–4 |
Doubles
- 2005 - Gold Coast (with Elena Likhovtseva)
- 2003 - Miami (with Liezel Huber); Warsaw (with Huber)
- 2002 - Antwerp (with Patty Schnyder)
- 1991 - Bol (with Laura Golarsa).
Record against other top players
As of November 2, 2010 Maleeva's win-loss record against certain players who have been ranked World No. 10 or higher is as follows:[2] Players who have been ranked World No. 1 are in boldface.
- Chanda Rubin 7–1
- Mary Pierce 4–2
- Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 4–5
- Ai Sugiyama 4–7
- Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 3–1
- Alicia Molik 3–2
- Paola Suarez 3–2
- Helena Sukova 3–2
- Venus Williams 3–3
- Lindsay Davenport 3–3
- Patty Schnyder 3–4
- Anke Huber 3–6
- Sandrine Testud 2–0
- Zina Garrison 2–1
- Lori McNeil 2–1
- / Natasha Zvereva 2–1
- Julie Halard-Decugis 2–1
- Elena Dementieva 2–2
- Pam Shriver 2–2
- Karina Habsudova 2–3
- / Martina Navratilova 2–4
- Nathalie Tauziat 2–7
- Jennifer Capriati 2–8
- Flavia Pennetta 1–0
- Marion Bartoli 1–0
- Gabriela Sabatini 1–0
- Barbara Paulus 1–1
- / Jelena Dokic 1–1
- Dominique Monami 1–1
- Anna Kournikova 1–1
- Francesca Schiavone 1–1
- / Jelena Jankovic 1–1
- Kimiko Date Krumm 1–2
- Anna Chakvetadze 1–2
- Mary Joe Fernandez 1–3
- Daniela Hantuchova 1–3
- Justine Henin 1–3
- Amanda Coetzer 1–4
- Iva Majoli 1–4
- // Monica Seles 1–4
- Anastasia Myskina 1–4
- Jana Novotna 1–5
- Amélie Mauresmo 1–6
- Conchita Martínez 1–11
- Barbara Schett 0–1
- Dinara Safina 0–1
- Nadia Petrova 0–2
- / Manuela Maleeva-Fragnière 0–2
- Svetlana Kuznetsova 0–2
- Katerina Maleeva 0–4
- Serena Williams 0–4
- Martina Hingis 0–5
- Kim Clijsters 0–6
- Steffi Graf 0–8
See also
References
External links
- Magdalena Maleeva at the Women's Tennis Association
- {{ITF profile}} template using deprecated numeric ID.
- Magdalena Maleeva at the Billie Jean King Cup
- The Maleeva tennis club
- Unofficial Magdalena Maleeva website
- Gorichka.bg
- 1975 births
- Living people
- Australian Open (tennis) champions
- Bulgarian female tennis players
- Bulgarian people of Armenian descent
- French Open champions
- Olympic tennis players of Bulgaria
- People from Sofia
- Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Tennis players at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- United States Open champions (tennis)