Knyazyeva won the silver medal in the triple jump at the 2007 European Athletics Junior Championships. On 10 July 2008, she came in 4th in the triple jump at the 12th IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics in Bydgoszcz, Poland, with a distance of 13.61 m. She established a personal best in June 2012 of 14.71 m in the triple jump, 79 centimeters short of the world record, when she was 22 years old.