Baltacha came from a sporty family. Her father Sergei Baltatscha was a national soccer player of the USSR, her mother Olga Baltatscha heptathlete and her brother Sergei Baltatscha jr. Football player in the Scottish Premier League . Elena Baltacha was number 1 in the UK singles ranking for 132 weeks, from December 2009 to June 2012. In the WTA world rankings , she climbed to 49th place (September 2010).
In 2012 she took part in the Olympic tennis tournament in singles and doubles . She played for the UK Fed Cup team for eleven years . She won eleven singles and four doubles titles at the ITF Women's Circuit . She ended her career at the end of the 2013 season and married her coach Nino Severino on December 8, 2013.
At the age of 19, Baltacha was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a chronic inflammation of the biliary tract inside and / or outside the liver. In mid-January 2014 she was diagnosed with liver carcinoma , from the consequences of which she died in Ipswich in May 2014 at the age of 30.
The winner's cup of the WTA tournament in Nottingham , the Elena Baltacha Trophy , was named after her in her honor.