Maria Kirilenko (born January 25, 1987 in Moscow) is a Russian professional tennis player. She plays right-handed and is 173 cm (5 ft 8 in) tall. She reached the third round of the US Open in 2003, and as of January 30, 2006, was the 23rd ranked player on the WTA tour in singles. She is a good friend of Maria Sharapova. She won her first WTA Tour title in 2005, beating Anna-Lena Groenefeld 6-3, 6-4 in the China Open.

Maria started playing tennis when she was just seven years old, when her father Yuri introduced her to the game in Moscow. She won the junior event at the 2002 Canadian Open, as well as the 2002 US Open junior tournament. In December 2004 she played in a tennis exhibition in Tampa, Florida to raise money for the Florida Hurricane Relief Fund.

--Wikipedia