page_title: Tsvetana Pironkova
section_title: 2010: First Grand Slam semifinal
hierarchical_section_title: Tsvetana Pironkova / Career / 2010: First Grand Slam semifinal
caption_attribution_description: Tsvetana Pironkova at US Open 2010
context_page_description: Tsvetana Kirilova Pironkova is a Bulgarian professional tennis player. She was the highest ranked Bulgarian tennis player for more than a decade. Pironkova is considered to be one of the best grass court players of her generation and has been noted for her "cerebral" skills on the surface. Dubbed as a dramatic ranking phenomenon by media outlets, she is also known for upstaging higher ranked opponents at Grand Slam tournaments.
  Pironkova started playing tennis at the age of four on being introduced to the sport by her father. She made her WTA Tour debut at the İstanbul Cup in 2005, and achieved moderate success earlier in her career. That changed in 2010, when she entered Wimbledon with a 1–4 career record at the event, and went on reach the semifinals of the tournament, becoming just the second Bulgarian tennis player in history to reach the semifinal stage of a Grand Slam in singles. She garnered wide recognition for her performance, and after her semifinal finish reached her highest singles ranking at No. 31 in September 2010. Pironkova followed it up with a quarterfinal run at the event the following year, earning her the nickname "The Wimbledon Darkhorse".
context_section_description: Pironkova bowed out of the Australian Open with a straight sets second-round loss to the world No. 28 Shahar Pe'er, after having beaten Galina Voskoboeva in the opening match.
  She made her first ITF circuit appearance of the year in the Fort Walton Beach tournament, where she reached the semifinals. In Warsaw she reached her first quarterfinal of the year after defeating Elena Dementieva. She then lost to the defending and eventual champion Alexandra Dulgheru. At the French Open, Pironkova lost to four-time tournament champion Justine Henin in the first round.
  Entering Wimbledon with a 1–4 career record at the event, Pironkova went beyond the second round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time and become the first Bulgarian to reach a semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament since Manuela Maleeva at the US Open in 1992 and 1993. Pironkova beat five-time champion Venus Williams before she lost her first Grand Slam semifinal to Vera Zvonareva in three sets.
  En route to her maiden semifinal appearance, Pironkova beat three Russian players Anna Lapushchenkova, Vera Dushevina, and Regina Kulikova all in straight sets in the first three rounds and then upstaged Frenchwoman and 11th seed Marion Bartoli in the fourth round before taking out Williams.
  Pironkova reached the second round in Palermo, beating Italian Anna Floris, before losing to Jill Craybas. In July, she scored a straight-set victory over Tatjana Malek in Istanbul. However, she then recorded three consecutive losses, two of which were to Anastasia Rodionova and one to Anna Lapushchenkova.
  At the US Open, Pironkova lost in the second round to qualifier Mandy Minella. At the Pan Pacific Open, she beat Japanese qualifier Ayumi Morita, before losing to qualifier Roberta Vinci in the second round. In her last tournament of the year, the Kremlin Cup, Pironkova lost in the second round to Dominika Cibulková, and ended the year ranked No. 35 in the world.
caption: Pironkova at the 2010 US Open
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