Elena Sergeevna Baltacha (Ukrainian: Олена Сергіївна Балтача; 14 August 1983 – 4 May 2014) was a Ukrainian-born British professional tennis player.

He represented the Soviet Union and from 1988 to 1995 played in the United Kingdom for Ipswich Town, St Johnstone and Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

[10] In 2010, the couple formed the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, which is still run by Niño and based around the facilities at Ipswich Sports Club, where she trained during her career.

[5] Several players paid tribute to Baltacha on Twitter including Grand Slam champions Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams, Billie Jean King, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Kim Clijsters, Petra Kvitová, Marion Bartoli, Chris Evert, Sam Stosur and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

[5][14] A host of ATP and WTA tennis players past and present came together on the centre court at the Madrid Open as a mark of respect for Baltacha.

[15] Baltacha's funeral took place on 19 May and was attended by Tim Henman, Annabel Croft, Laura Robson, Jo Durie and Judy Murray among others.

[16][17] The money was to be split equally between the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, which she set up to help disadvantaged children take up the sport.

[19] In November 1997, Baltacha made her debut on the ITF Circuit in Edinburgh where she was beaten in the first round of the qualifying stages in three sets by Danica Kovakova.

[23] Her next tournament was the $25k event in Felixstowe which she won by beating Irishwoman Kelly Liggan in the final to give her the first ITF Circuit singles title of her career.

[20] Baltacha's 2003 season started slowly; she lost in round one of the qualifying tournament for the first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open.

In June she was given a wildcard into the main draw of the Birmingham Classic but was forced to retire during her first round match against fellow Brit Jane O'Donoghue after the first game of the final set.

[26] This was Baltacha's final match of the year as she underwent invasive surgery after Wimbledon (to determine the cause of her persistent liver troubles) which put her out of action until 2004.

She underwent keyhole surgery on a prolapsed disc on 7 June and spent the rest of the season out-of-action recovering[36] and as a result, her season-ending ranking was world No.

[20] By the time Baltacha returned to action in March 2007 after surgery, her singles ranking had fallen to 660 in the world and as such, she had to qualify for her first $25k ITF tournament of the year in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

In June, she received a wildcard into the main draw of the Birmingham Classic where she showed "fighting spirit" in her first round loss to Milagros Sequera.

[40] After Wimbledon, Baltacha headed to the United States to compete again on the ITF Circuit where she reached the quarterfinals of the $50k event in Lexington, Kentucky.

She beat María Emilia Salerni, Ágnes Szatmári and Natalie Grandin to qualify and then continued winning by defeating Yan Zi in the first round.

This was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for a Tier-III event in Bangkok and then a return to the ITF Circuit where she reached the semifinals in Makinohara and the quarterfinals in Hamanako (both $25k), losing both times to Seiko Okamoto.

She played seven more higher-level ITF tournaments over the rest of the year and reached the quarterfinals in one of them: the $50k event in Ismaning where she lost to Julia Görges.

Following this performance in the Fed Cup, Elena competed in a $100k tournament in Midland, Michigan where she reached the final and defeated Lucie Hradecká to win the biggest title of her career.

After this, she went on to reach the quarterfinals of a $100k tournament in Johannesberg before beginning her clay court season with a loss to Gréta Arn in the first round of the Italian Open, a Premier-5 event.

In her final event before the French Open, Baltacha participated in the Internationaux de Strasbourg as the eighth seed but was forced to retire in the second round due to a back injury.

Her next event was the Eastbourne International where during her first-round match with Li Na, the Chinese player had to retire with a leg injury after winning the first set on a tie-break.

She had also been selected to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games but chose not to participate due to the poor sanitation in the athletes' village, which, as a result of her chronic liver problem, may have left her susceptible to picking up infections.

Due to the previous win by fellow Briton Heather Watson, it was the first time since 1992 that two British women had cleared the first round of the French Open.

Baltacha was selected for the British Fed Cup team to play in the Europe/Africa Group 1 match in Eilat, Israel on 1–4 February 2012.

Baltacha did however have a better run at Wimbledon, making the second round but lost to the previous year's champion Petra Kvitová in straight sets.

Baltacha competed at the Summer Olympics in London for the first time in her career in both the singles and the doubles events (partnering Anne Keothavong).

An illness to Heather Watson meant that Baltacha made British Fed Cup World Group II play-off team to face Argentina.

She then beat the seventh seed Tadeja Majerič in the final in straight sets coming from behind in the first 2–5 down to claim her third title at Nottingham.