Yesterday, Alisa Kleybanova (photo ©Christian Mesiano) got back to playing tennis at the WTA tournament in Miami after spending nearly a year to treat a Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer originating from white blood cells.

Born on July 15, 1989, Alisa Kleybanova became a professional tennis player in 2003, winning the first ITF tournament she played. Over the years, she improved until she won two WTA tournaments in 2010 in Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. She also won some double tournaments with various partners: among them the most important is the Tokyo tournament, won in 2009 together with Francesca Schiavone.

On February 21, 2011, Alisa Kleybanova reached the 20th position in the WTA rankings, the best in her career.

Unfortunately, in 2011, Alisa Kleybanova was struck by health problems and was forced to withdraw from the French Open. After medical tests, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her 22nd birthday was certainly not happy, because that day she announced her indefinite retirement from competitions to undergo treatments.

For Alisa Kleybanova that was another challenge, so much that on his site, in the section where there are the updates of her last match and the next one she will play, she added the one against Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Alisa Kleybanova received treatments at the Policlinico Gemelli in Rome and Hospital Silvestrini in Perugia, Italy, and at the end of February 2012 the terrific news arrived that the treatments were successful, she returned to Florida to train in and was ready to resume her competitive activity.

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Alisa Kleybanova received a wild card to play the WTA tournament in Miami. For the record, yesterday she played Johanna Larsson in the first round and won 2-6 6-3 6-2. Obviously, she had some difficulties at the beginning and at the end of the match admitted that she was a bit out of control but the important thing for her was to be back on court.

In the second round, Alisa Kleybanova will face Maria Kirilenko, a really good player who is playing well. However, even if she lost it wouldn’t really be such a big deal. The really important win for her, which with just pride she reported on her website, was that over Hodgkin’s lymphoma 6-0 6-0. Welcome back Alisa! 🙂