Yulia Wakulenko

Yulia Wakulenko
Wakulenko 2008 at the US Open
Nation:	Ukraine
Birthday:	July 10, 1983
Size:	183 cm
1st professional season:	1998
Playing hand:	Right, two-handed backhand
Prize money:	$ 869,460
singles
Career record:	282: 191
Career title:	0 WTA , 7 ITF
Highest ranking:	32 (July 19, 2007)
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	16:37
Career title:	0 WTA, 0 ITF
Highest ranking:	136 (February 7, 2004)
Grand Slam record
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Julija Olehiwna Wakulenko ( Ukrainian Юлія Оле́гівна Вакуленко ; born July 10, 1983 in Yalta , then Ukrainian SSR ) is a former Ukrainian tennis player .

When she was seven years old, her parents separated. She moved with her mother to her new partner in Belgrade (then the capital of Yugoslavia) and first had to learn the new language. At first she played tennis exclusively on clay courts. She later moved to Spain where she trained at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy . Her strengths were, with a height of 1.83 m, the serve and hard baseline hits. Wakulenko is fluent in Russian, English, Spanish and Serbian.

Career

In 1998 she became a professional player. At first she only competed in ITF tournaments; in her first tournament she was in the final, in the second she won the title. In May 1999 she appeared for the first time in the world rankings (place 511). By the time she made her debut on the WTA Tour , Wakulenko had reached two more finals at ITF tournaments. At the Australian Open in 2001 she played her first Grand Slam tournament , but failed in qualifying. Things went better at Wimbledon and New York , where they made it into the qualifying round. At the end of the year she was listed in the top 150 for the first time.

In Rome in 2002 Wakulenko won her first match in the main draw of a WTA tournament. A year later she made it into the top 100 when she u. a. had reached the third round of the French Open and won their fourth ITF tournament. In January 2004, she fought her way to the Canberra semi-finals . This was followed by a quarter-finals in Estoril and the second round at the US Open, where they could force number two in the world, Amélie Mauresmo , into a third set. The 2005 season didn't start for Wakulenko until May. In Wimbledon she then delivered her best match up to that point against the two-time Grand Slam winner Mary Pierce , to which she was only defeated after 2 hours and 40 minutes and two match points awarded 6: 4, 6: 7 and 7: 9.

After repeated injuries and the stagnation of her ranking position, she decided to take a break from tennis. A year later she returned and found connections again with 16 wins in the clay court season. In May 2007 she ended the career of Kim Clijsters with her first win over a top 5 player - for herself this meant entering the top 50. The following week Wakulenko was able to win over Amélie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina in Berlin defeat the second and third top 10 players as well. After a dry spell in the USA, she defeated Daniela Hantuchová at the US Open and reached the round of 16 there. In Linz she finally played her first final on the WTA Tour, which she lost to Lindsay Davenport . It reached its best ranking on November 19, 2007 with 32nd place. At the end of 2009 it had slipped to 19th place. At the Australian Open, she played her last match as a professional in January 2010.

Tournament victories

singles

No.	date	competition	category	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1	December 6, 1998	Mallorca	ITF $ 10,000	sand	Laura Pena	6: 4, 6: 1
2	November 24, 2002	Deauville	ITF $ 25,000	Sand (hall)	Virginie Pichet	6: 2, 6: 1
3	December 8, 2002	Boynton Beach	ITF $ 75,000	sand	Bethanie Mattek-Sands	6: 4, 6: 0
4th	February 8, 2009	Girona	ITF $ 50,000	Hard court	Barbora Strýcová	7: 5, 2: 0 exercise
5	February 8, 2009	Rancho Mirage	ITF $ 25,000	Hard court	Lauren Albanese	6-0, 6-1
6th	June 27, 2009	Périgueux	ITF $ 25,000	sand	Sophie Ferguson	6: 2, 7: 5
7th	August 16, 2009	Koksijde	ITF $ 25,000	sand	Iryna Kuryanovich	7: 5, 6: 1

Web links

Commons : Julija Wakulenko  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• WTA profile of Julia Vakulenko (English)
• ITF profile Julia Vakulenko (English)