The 21st century

Magdalena Maleeva

Bulgaria · born Sofia, 1975 · right-handed · youngest of the three Maleeva sisters, Birmingham champion in 2003

Magdalena Maleeva
Assaf Yekuel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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6-1, 6-4

Birmingham final of 2003 against Shinobu Asagoe, won in 65 minutes

10

Career singles titles; Birmingham was the tenth

4

Wimbledon fourth rounds: 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005

No. 4

Career-high singles ranking, January 1996

40

WTA singles titles won by the three Maleeva sisters

Playing career

Magdalena Maleeva was born in Sofia in 1975, the youngest of three daughters of Yuliya Berberyan, a nine-time Bulgarian champion who coached all three. At 13 she became the youngest national champion of Bulgaria. All three sisters reached the WTA top six, and between them they won 40 singles titles.

At 17 she beat Martina Navratilova at the 1992 US Open and reached the quarter-finals, where she lost to her sister Manuela. She rose to a career-high No. 4 in January 1996. Shoulder surgery ended her 1998 season; she came back to the top 20 and in 2002 won the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, beating Venus Williams, Amélie Mauresmo and Lindsay Davenport. She played for Bulgaria in the Fed Cup and at three Olympic Games, and retired in October 2005 after 16 seasons with 10 singles titles.

After tennis she turned to environmental conservation and organic food businesses in Sofia, and is a partner at the family's Maleeva Tennis Club. In February 2024 she was named Bulgaria's Billie Jean King Cup captain.

On grass

Birmingham 2003Won the title by beating the world No. 103 Shinobu Asagoe 6-1, 6-4 in 65 minutes, taking the first set in 23 minutes and closing on her third match point. Asagoe had beaten Maria Sharapova in the semi-finals
WimbledonFourth round in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005, her last Championships. She played the singles 13 times between 1990 and 2005
Wimbledon invitation doublesWon the ladies' invitation doubles in 2015 with Rennae Stubbs

Every grass title: 1

Show every title, tournament by tournament
Birmingham
2003 Women's singles

Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. † single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions

"You taught me all my life that work was the only way and now you're asking me to stop? I'm sorry, but I can't."

Magdalena Maleeva to her mother and coach, Yuliya Berberyan, when told to ease off her training, as reported by Tennishead

Anecdotes

The person behind the player.

Training

Working alone

When her mother stepped back from coaching, Maleeva kept to a programme a foreign trainer had left her and trained alone to the point of exhaustion. Asked to stop, she told her mother that she had taught her all her life that work was the only way.

Source: Tennishead

Hamburg 1993

The other player on court

Maleeva was Monica Seles's opponent in the Hamburg quarter-final of 30 April 1993, with Seles leading 6-4, 4-3, when a spectator stabbed Seles at a changeover. The match was not completed.

Source: Tennis Majors

Birmingham 2003

Sixty-five minutes

The 2003 final took 65 minutes. Maleeva won the first set in 23, and her opponent, Shinobu Asagoe, was playing her first tour final after knocking out the teenage Maria Sharapova.

Source: Dawn, June 2003

US Open 1992

Sister against sister

Maleeva's first Grand Slam quarter-final, at the 1992 US Open after a win over Martina Navratilova, ended against her eldest sister, Manuela.

Source: Wikipedia

Explore

Where they won on grass

Elsewhere online

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Sources

Page updated 4 November 2026. Spotted an error? Send a correction.

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