Alisa Mikhailovna Kleybanova (, born 15 July 1989) is a Russian former tennis player. Her career-high singles ranking is world No. 20, achieved in February 2011. In her career, she won two singles titles and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour.
Career Kleybanova made her senior tennis début in 2003 aged 14, and won the first ITF tournament she entered.
To date her career-best achievements have been reaching the fourth round at two Grand Slam tournaments at Wimbledon and Australian Open as a direct entrant, two WTA Tour Tier-II quarterfinals (Antwerp, 2008; Eastbourne, 2008) as a qualifier. Additionally, she has reached one Tier I third round (Miami, 2008) as a qualifier, and one Tier IV quarterfinal (Fes, 2008) as a direct entrant.
At the higher levels of the ITF Women's Circuit, she has reached one $100k quarterfinal, two $75k quarterfinals, one $50k final and one $50k semifinal. In addition, at the lower levels, she has won seven $25k titles and one $10k title outright, and has reached two further $25k finals and another three $25k semifinals.
She has also experienced success in the juniors; she won the 2003 Wimbledon Championships girls' doubles with Sania Mirza, aged 13. Three years later, she won the same competition with fellow rising Russian star Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. She also won the girls' doubles at the 2005 US Open with Czech Nikola Fraňková.
2003–2004 In August 2003, aged 14 years and one month, Kleybanova entered qualifying for her first $10k event at Mollerusa, Spain, and came through all three qualifying rounds into the main draw without dropping a set, then proceeded to progress through to the final and win the title on her first attempt, having ceded just one set in the whole tournament in her second-round match.
She played six tournaments on the tour and ranked No. 364 by the end of 2004.
2005 In March, the Russian teenager was favoured with a wildcard into the main draw at Indian Wells for the second year running, but this time she lost in the first round to world No. 95, Anne Kremer of Luxembourg.
Her ranking having plunged to 520 following her failure to defend her points picked up at Indian Wells a year earlier, she was wildcarded into the qualifying draw instead of the main draw for the Tier-I event at Miami that immediately followed, and at first defeated world No. 91, Séverine Beltrame (nowadays known as Séverine Brémond), but then lost in the second round of qualifying to German Julia Schruff.
By the time she next competed in July, she had lost nearly all her ranking points and plummeted to world No. 730. She came through qualifying draw at a $25k tournament held at Felixstowe, England, but lost in the second round of the main draw to world No. 228, Jarmila Gajdošová.
In August, ranked 618th, she entered qualifying for two successive $25k events in China – the first at Wuxi, where she qualified but lost in the second round of the main draw to world No. 325, Miho Saeki, and the second at Nanjing, where in the first round of qualifying she had to withdraw with the score level at one set all against a little-known Chinese player.
Travelling to Moscow at the end of the month, she entered qualifying for a further $25k event there, and enjoyed not only by far her most successful performance of the year but also the best of her career, as she came through three rounds of qualifying and then won the entire tournament. Her vanquished opponents included Galyna Kosyk of Ukraine, whom she defeated in the second round of qualifying, Italians Giulia Gabba, Sara Errani and Karin Knapp, all of whom she defeated in straight sets, Margalita Chakhnashvili of Georgia, whom she beat in the semifinals, and fellow-Russian Vasilisa Bardina, whom she ousted in the final 6–2, 6–2.
Wildcarded into the qualifying draw for the annual Tier-I fixture at Moscow in early October, her ranking having leapt back up to world No. 384, Kleybanova double-bagelled American former top 40 star Alexandra Stevenson in the first round of qualifying, but then lost a close three-set match to Bulgarian world No. 41, Sesil Karatantcheva, in the second.
As a direct entrant to a $25k event at Makinohara, Japan the following week, she battled past world No. 192, Seiko Okamoto, in the first round and world No. 349, Ayumi Morita, in the semifinals, but otherwise did not drop a set in claiming her second career $25k title.
This result elevated her world ranking to a personal-best world No. 294 by the time of her entry into her next $25k draw at Sutama, Japan early in November. On this occasion, she won the whole tournament without losing a single set, defeating world No. 199, Shiho Hisamatsu, in the final to take her third $25k title and fourth ITF tournament victory.
In December, she tried her hand at qualifying for a $50k tournament at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, but was defeated in three sets in the qualifying round by a lower-ranked player from Taipei. However, she entered the main draw as a lucky loser, and knocked out world No. 110, Saori Obata, in the first round, before losing to world No. 225, Tiffany Dabek of the U.S., in round two.
The year ended for her with a win–loss record of 28–8 and a world ranking of 244th.
2006 The Russian 16-year-old began 2006 by attempting to qualify for the Tier IV Pattaya Open, but lost in the first round of the qualifying draw to American world No. 125, Bethanie Mattek.
Then in April, having skipped Indian Wells, she was awarded a wildcard into the main draw at Miami, but was defeated in the first round by French world No. 47, Virginie Razzano.
In May, she retreated again to the $25k level in Italy, playing back-to-back tournaments at Caserta and Campobasso. She reached the final in the first of these, recording four straight sets wins including victories over Sanja Ančić in the quarterfinals and world No. 241, Alizé Cornet, in the semifinals. But at the last hurdle she lost to world No. 270, Mandy Minella of Luxembourg. Then the following week at Campobasso, she gained her revenge over Minella by defeating her in the final to pick up the fourth $25k title of her career, having earlier again put out Ančić in the semifinals.
On the strength of these two tournaments, she entered the top 200 for the first time in her career.
In late July, world-ranked 198th, she attempted to qualify for the Tier IV event at Budapest, and for the first time in her career succeeded in qualifying for a WTA main draw, after defeating world No. 117, María José Martínez Sánchez, in the qualifying round. But world No. 107, Laura Pous Tió, defeated her in the first-round proper.
A month later, ranked 193rd, she attempted again to qualify for a $50k event at the Bronx, but was defeated in straight sets by a slightly lower-ranked opponent, Natalie Grandin, in the first round of the qualifying draw.
She followed up this disappointment by attempting to qualify for a Grand Slam main draw for the first time at the US Open, and progressed to the qualifying round with wins over world No. 115, Tamarine Tanasugarn, and world No. 224, Shiho Hisamatsu, then lost to world No. 130, Sandra Klösel, in straight sets.
Returning to Moscow in early October, she tried again to qualify for the annual Tier I event there, but this time lost in the second round of qualifying to her compatriot world No. 84, Vasilisa Bardina.
She next played in early November, where, as a direct entrant into the first round of a $75k tournament at Pittsburgh, she had reached 4–6, 7–6, 1–1 against American world No. 44, Shenay Perry, before her opponent retired. But in the second round, she lost in straight sets to world No. 130, Stéphanie Dubois.
Her ranking having slipped to world No. 262 by the middle of the month following her failure to defend her $25k tournament victories a year previously, she nonetheless gained direct entry into a $50k event at Lawrenceville, Georgia, and easily surpassed her previous career-best record at this level of tournament by reaching the semifinals with back-to-back straight sets victories over Americans world No. 129, Ahsha Rolle and world No. 104, Bethanie Mattek and world No. 115, Clarisa Fernández. But it was to be an American star of the future, Julie Ditty, then ranked only 297th, who would oust her 6–1, 6–2 in the semifinals.
At the end of November, ranked 238th, Kleybanova entered another $50k draw at San Diego, and beat Ireland's Kelly Liggan in the first round before losing to upcoming compatriot Ekaterina Afinogenova in the second.
She did not play in December, and ended the year ranked world No. 262. Her win–loss record for the year was 20–10.
2007 Starting the new season relatively late at a $25k event at Minsk in early March, Kleybanova could only reach the quarterfinals before losing in three sets to British world No. 222, Amanda Keen, having had to struggle through two three-sets victories over lower-ranked players Lina Stančiūtė of Lithuania and fellow-Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to reach even that far.
At Moscow at the end of March, she entered another $25k tournament, and this time reached the semifinals without dropping a set after her quarterfinal opponent world No. 232, Nika Ožegović of Croatia, retired at 1–4 down to the Russian teenager. But in the semifinals she was defeated by another young Russian, world No. 199 Evgeniya Rodina.
In Moscow again two months later, she reached her second successive $25k semifinal, this time losing to a compatriot, world No. 224 Ekaterina Makarova.
By the middle of July, Kleybanova continued at the $25k level into the early summer, she reached a quarterfinal at Rome in mid-July before losing in straight sets to lower-ranked Austrian Patricia Mayr.
But the following week, still in Italy at Monteroni d'Arbia, she won her fifth career $25k title and first of the year, after defeating world No. 195, Darya Kustova of Belarus, in the semifinals, and Estonian world No. 223, Margit Rüütel, in the final.
A week later, she decided to step up to the $75k level for the first time that year, and gained direct entry to an event of that calibre at Rimini, Italy. Having battled past both her first two opponents by the identical scoreline of, including Ukrainian world No. 174, Mariya Koryttseva in round one, to reach her career-first $75k main-draw quarterfinal, she then found herself engaged in a very close battle with Swiss world No. 133 and former top-100 player, Emmanuelle Gagliardi, which the Russian eventually lost in three sets.
Back in Moscow again in late August, buoyed by her recent successes to world No. 208, she reached another $25k semifinal, defeating Kristina Antoniychuk in the quarterfinals before losing to fellow-Russian upstart Anastasia Pivovarova.
In the next two weeks, she entered two further $50k tournaments. In the first, at Moscow, she lost a close three-set match in the first round to compatriot Anastasia Poltoratskaya, whom she had easily beaten in the first round of the $25k tournament the previous week. Then at Mestre, Italy, she reached her career-first $50k final with back-to-back defeats of world No. 202, Jenifer Widjaja of Brazil, world No. 191, Ivana Lisjak of Croatia, and Czech players world No. 144, Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová and world No. 119, Renata Voráčová. But she was denied the title by world No. 150, Rossana de los Ríos of Paraguay, who took the final in three sets.
This performance lifted Kleybanova to a ranking of 195th, just below her personal best set in the summer of 2006, in time for entering her first $100k draw at Bordeaux, France the very week after. Here, she scored successive three-sets defeats over French world No. 86, Pauline Parmentier and former top-100 star, now world No. 141, Laura Pous Tió. But she lost in the quarterfinals to world No. 68, Alizé Cornet.