Considered to be one of the best grass court players of her generation, she has been noted for her "cerebral" skills on the surface, reaching the semifinals at the Wimbledon Championships.

[10][11] Pironkova has a total of twelve wins over top-10 ranked players and, at a point of time, held one of the longest streak of consecutive Grand Slam appearances at 47.

[12][13] Pironkova was born 1987 to athlete parents; her father Kiril Enchev Pironkov is a former canoeing champion, and her mother Radosveta Chinkova Nikolova is a former swimmer.

[31] After the US Open in September, Pironkova played in one of the biggest Challenger events of the year in Bordeaux, winning the tournament with straight-set victories over Mathilde Johansson, Tatjana Malek and Alizé Cornet.

[29][32] Pironkova made a solid start to 2008, winning two qualifying matches at the Tier-II event in Sydney before bowing out in three sets to Dominika Cibulková.

[29] Pironkova played her last tournament of the season at Kremlin Cup where she came up with better performance reaching the quarterfinals defeating top seeded Vera Zvonareva in round of 16 before losing out to Alona Bondarenko.

[35] Pironkova beat five-time champion Venus Williams before she lost her first Grand Slam semifinal to Vera Zvonareva, in three sets.

She was seeded 32nd at the French Open and beat Casey Dellacqua in the first round, but yet again failed to cross the second-round hurdle as she lost to Gisela Dulko in straight sets.

In July, Pironkova competed in the Internazionali di Palermo, where she defeated Anna Tatishvili in the first round and Sorana Cîrstea in the second, before losing to Flavia Pennetta.

On 9 February, she played in the tie against Slovenia, and beat Tjasa Srimpf, who retired after losing the first game of the match, which advanced Bulgaria to the promotion playoffs.

Following a string of first-round losses,[44] Pironkova beat Karolína Plíšková in Marrakesh, but then lost in three sets to Lourdes Domínguez Lino, who went on to reach the final.

[44] On her preferred surface of grass,[3] Pironkova snapped her losing streak at the Birmingham Classic, defeating Lauren Davis in the opening round.

She went on to play in 's-Hertogenbosch, where she beat Kristina Mladenovic and Irina-Camelia Begu, marking the first time since January that she reached the quarterfinals of a WTA event.

Pironkova's run in Australia ended at the Australian Open with a second-round straight-set loss to Samantha Stosur, managing to win just two games.

Pironkova then faced a major test in round two, in what was her fifth loss out of five matches, despite being a break up in the first set, to seventh seed Maria Sharapova, who went on to win the tournament.

[55] At the Australian Open, she beat Heather Watson in the first round, but then in what was her eighth loss against the Slovak out of nine matches, lost to 11th seed Dominika Cibulková in the second, again in straight sets.

Pironkova reached the third round of the Dubai Championships, where she beat Klára Koukalová and Peng Shuai, before losing to top seed world No.

[56] At the French Open, Pironkova reached the third round, where she upset 25th seed Barbora Strýcová and then took out another Czech player Denisa Allertová, both in straight sets, before losing to Sloane Stephens.

[57] Pironkova started her grass-court season at the Birmingham Classic, where in the first round she beat Brit Katie Stan, but came short against German fourth seed Angelique Kerber, losing in three sets.

She played the Sydney International, where she received a wildcard to the main draw and reached the second round, beating Lesia Tsurenko before losing to No.

Her next tournament was the Dubai Championships, where she entered the main draw after beating Kristýna Plíšková, Kateryna Bondarenko and Anna-Lena Friedsam in the qualifying.

The tournament marked Pironkova's 45th consecutive Grand Slam appearance, the second longest active streak on the WTA Tour only behind Jelena Janković's 51.

Pironkova failed to reach the main draw as she suffered a tough three-set defeat in the final qualifying round, losing out to the third seed Lara Arruabarrena.

[66] Pironkova defeated Monica Niculescu in straight sets in her first match in the main draw, and then faced second seed Simona Halep in the next round.

[70] Pironkova was dubbed as the darkhorse and one of the most dangerous unseeded players in draw by WTA insider David Kane prior to the tournament, and her potential second round encounter with former world No.

'USOpen.org' writer Steve Pratt highlighted Pironkova's run to the quarterfinals, noting how her successful return to tour after a three-year absence "[became] the story of the women's singles draw".

Due to her stellar performance at the US Open, reaching the quarterfinals at this major for the first time in her career, Pironkova was announced as the Bulgarian Sportsperson of the Year.

She told the freelance tennis writer Matt Trollope that she played mostly on clay courts early in her career and that the aggressive style developed "pretty naturally" during her formative years.

Sports columnist Simon Briggs elaborated on the similarity in the styles noting that Pironkova's court craft and tactical nous made her capable of "reflecting the Williams sisters' own power back against them".

[89] Pironkova has also been praised for her fast movement on the tennis court by such commentators as Briggs, who was impressed by her "nimble" footwork at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.