Elena Baltacha, a Ukrainian-born tennis star, has died of liver cancer at the age of 30.
Baltacha died on May 4. She had been ranked as the number one British player for nearly three years.
She won 11 singles titles, made the third round of Wimbledon in 2002 and was a member of Great Britain’s Fed Cup team for 11 years.
She also reached the third round of the Australian Open in 2005 and 2010 and achieved a career-high world ranking of 49 -- despite being diagnosed with a chronic liver condition at the age of 19 in 2003.
Baltacha was born in Kyiv and moved to the United Kingdom at age five following the transfer there of her professional soccer star father Sergei Baltacha -- who previously played for the Soviet Union's 1982 World Cup team and Dynamo Kyiv.
Baltacha died on May 4. She had been ranked as the number one British player for nearly three years.
She won 11 singles titles, made the third round of Wimbledon in 2002 and was a member of Great Britain’s Fed Cup team for 11 years.
She also reached the third round of the Australian Open in 2005 and 2010 and achieved a career-high world ranking of 49 -- despite being diagnosed with a chronic liver condition at the age of 19 in 2003.
Baltacha was born in Kyiv and moved to the United Kingdom at age five following the transfer there of her professional soccer star father Sergei Baltacha -- who previously played for the Soviet Union's 1982 World Cup team and Dynamo Kyiv.