- published: 23 Oct 2011
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Tsvetana Pironkova (Bulgarian: Цветана Кирилова Пиронкова) (born 13 September 1987) is a Bulgarian tennis player. She was born and lives in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Pironkova is right-handed and plays with a two-handed backhand. She achieved her career high of world no. 31 on 13 September 2010. She is best known for defeating Venus Williams three times at Grand Slam tournaments. She is currently the Bulgarian No. 1, and has won six ITF titles in her career. She has been recognized as one of the most beautiful women in sports by MSN.
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. Kiril later became her coach.
Pironkiva plays right-handed, and uses a double backhand. In 2001, Pironkova won the Atlantic Cup International Junior Tournament held in Bulgaria, and her career high in juniors was world no. 227 on 25 March 2002.
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002 and regained this ranking for the fifth time on November 2, 2009. She is the only female player to have won over $35 million in prize money.
Her 27 Grand Slam titles places her ninth on the all-time list: 13 in singles, 12 in women's doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously and only the fifth woman in history to do so. She was also the first woman, along with sister Venus Williams, to hold all four Grand Slam doubles titles simultaneously since Martina Hingis did so in 1998. Her 13 Grand Slam singles titles is sixth on the all-time list. Williams ranks fourth in Grand Slam women's singles titles won during the open era, behind Steffi Graf (22 titles) and Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (18 titles each). She has won more Major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles than any other active player, male or female.