Liudmila Samsonova

Liudmila Dmitrievna Samsonova (Russian: Людмила Дмитриевна Самсонова, IPA: [lʲʊdˈmʲiɫə sɐmˈsonəvə]; born 11 November 1998) is a Russian professional tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of No. 12 in singles and No. 36 in doubles.

She has won five singles and two doubles titles on the WTA Tour, her first title being a WTA 500 title at the 2021 German Open. She has also won a total of eight singles and three doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. During the 2020–21 Billie Jean King Cup, Samsonova led the Russian team to their first triumph since 2008, winning all five of her matches in both singles and doubles.

Samsonova also competed for Italy from 2014 to 2018.

Samsonova was born in the industrial city of Olenegorsk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Her family moved with the then-one-year-old Liudmila to Italy. Her father Dmitry, a table tennis player, was invited to play for the club Ferentino based in Turin. Her father urged her to start playing either table tennis or lawn tennis, choosing the latter. She started playing at the age of six, joining the Piatti Tennis Center in Bordighera after the local tennis association helped her financially. Between 2014 and 2018, Liudmila represented Italy in professional tennis, before switching to the Russian flag.

In July 2021, she explained the reason behind her decision was the extra pressure of competing for the Italian national team, a country where tennis is more closely followed than in Russia where it feels to her as though she competes only for herself, especially considering her "boom boom" hard-hitting game style. Russian sources were more specific about the reasons behind the unusual switch after turning 18 in the light of significant numbers of local players switching from the Russian flag. According to the Tennis Weekend, Samsonova faced problems whilst trying to obtain an Italian passport and there was a relatively low level of support for her as an outsider from the Italian Tennis Federation. She keeps practising outside of Russia, as she is unsatisfied with the condition for professional tennis provided by the Russian Tennis Federation domestically. In October 2021, Samsonova said that she didn't have an Italian passport and thus never faced the option of choosing between the two flags.

Liudmila admitted that if her parents had stayed in Russia she would have chosen figure skating. She speaks fluent Italian, Russian, and English.

Samsonova reached her highest ITF junior ranking on 18 July 2016, peaking at the 65th spot on the rankings. Her biggest achievements were winning consecutive ITF Junior Circuit Grade-2 tournaments in 2016, defeating notable players such as Kaja Juvan and Marta Kostyuk.

In 2013, Samsonova made her professional debut at consecutive ITF Circuit tournaments in Umag, but lost her both singles qualifying matches.