She is best known for reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon 2010, defeating 5-time champion and former World No. 1 Venus Williams in the quarterfinals.
Contents
* 1 Early life and Junior career
* 2 Professional career
o 2.1 ITF
o 2.2 WTA
+ 2.2.1 2005–06
+ 2.2.2 2007
+ 2.2.3 2008
+ 2.2.4 2009
+ 2.2.5 2010
+ 2.2.6 2011
* 3 Career ITF finals
o 3.1 Singles: 6
* 4 Singles performance timeline
* 5 Head-to-head vs. top 20
* 6 References
* 7 External links
Early life and Junior career
Pironkova was born in 1987 to Kiril Enchev Pironkov, a former canoeing champion and Radosveta Chinkova Nikolova, a former swimming champion. She started playing tennis at the age of 4, when her father Kiril introduced her to the game. At the age of six, she started playing in junior tournaments in Bulgaria.[citation needed] Kiril later became her coach.
In 2001, Pironkova won the Atlantic Cup International Junior Tournament held in Bulgaria,and her career high in juniors was world no. 227 on March 25, 2002.
Professional career
ITF
In August 2002 at the age of 14, Pironkova played her first professional tournament at the $10,000 International Tennis Federation Tournament in Bucharest, Romania. Pironkova won 3 qualifying matches before reaching the final in the main draw, where she lost to Monica Niculescu of Romania, 6–1, 7–6(1).
In September 2002, Pironkova played in the $10,000 ITF event in Volos, Greece, where she lost only one set playing through the qualifying and main draw. She defeated Tina Schmassmann of Switzerland 7–6(3), 7–5[7] to win her first professional ITF event.
In 2003, she won three ITF singles titles: one in Orestiada, Greece and two in Istanbul.
WTA
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