Лина Красноруцкая: Путь от юниорского триумфа к травмам и возвращению

Russian tennis player

Lina Vladimirovna Krasnoroutskaya (Лина Владимировна Красноруцкая ; born 29 April 1984) is a retired tennis player. She is a former junior world No. 1 (1999), and in addition, she won the US Open junior title. Krasnoroutskaya, however, had a career blighted by injury.

Krasnoroutskaya was born in the Crimean city of Kerch to Vladimir and Marina, the former being also her tennis coach. She also has interest is windsurfing. While growing up, she admired Andre Agassi because of his positive attitude. She kept dominating the U14 circuit in the Tennis Europe Junior Tour throughout the rest of the year as she successfully defended all three of her 1997 titles; in Geneva, Arezzo, and Moscow; and then reached the final of the European Junior Championships in both singles and doubles, beating Scarlett Werner in the former, while losing the latter paired with Galina Fokina. In that same year, and despite still being only 14, she began competing in the U16 circuit and won titles in Louvain la Neuve, La Hulpe, and Baden Baden. She ended the 1998 season as the No. 1, thus becoming the first player in the history of the Tennis Europe U14 circuit to successfully defend a year end No. 1 position (1997 and 1998). She also had a successful run on the ITF Junior Circuit, where she also dominated, winning the Girls' U. S. Open, ending the year as the No. 1 junior in the world.

She turned pro in the following year, in 1999, and in her first WTA Tour tournament in Luxembourg, she reached the semi finals with a series of remarkable comebacks over Magdalena Maleeva (trailed 6–3, 5–2) and Silvia Farina (trailed 6–0, 3–1). She then won her first and only victory in singles in a senior tournament, an ITF tournament in San Severo, Italy, beating Oana Elena Golimbioschi in the final, 6–3, 6–0. She was ranked No. 163 in her first season ending ranking. After a successful year in 2001, when she reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros (seventh youngest player ever to do so) and the Wimbledon last 16, as the world No. 34, she was badly injured at the 2002 Australian Open when she obtained an invite from Hong Kong Tennis Patrons' Association to play the Hong Kong Ladies Challenge after. She was not effectively back until February 2003 when she climbed back up the rankings (reached 25th) after wins over Monica Seles, Elena Bovina, Nadia Petrova and then world No. 1, Kim Clijsters. However, a shoulder injury at the end of 2003, then a liver condition in 2004, followed by stomach problems at the start of 2005 meant that she had considered (March 2005) whether to continue on the pro tour. In June 2005, she announced she would be returning, but that the return would be delayed until after the birth of her first baby in November 2005. Despite her injuries, she has earned almost $1 million in prize money, has represented her country at both junior and senior level, reached a WTA Tier I final in Canada (2003), a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon in the doubles with Elena Dementieva (having beaten the Williams sisters on centre court in the third round) and runner up at the US Open in 2003 in the mixed doubles with Daniel Nestor, who had three match points. She is a commentator on Russian TV, for NTV Plus.

ResultNo. DateTournamentSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss 1. 5 April 1999 ITF Cerignola, Italy Clay Irina Kornienko Jasmine Choudhury Lizzie Jelfs 5–7, 5–7Loss 2. 3 December 2002 ITF Boynton Beach, United States Clay Alina Jidkova Katalin Marosi Samantha Reeves 2–6, 6–7