A month and a half ago,news leaked that Alisa Kleybanova finished her chemo/radiation therapy and that she was planning to resume training in February, while a comeback during the claycourt season was stated as a possibility. Matt Cronin is now informing us on Tennis.com that Kleybanova has started her off-court training and if she passes one more major medical test, she will take up training on the tennis courts. In case the Russian doesn't pass the test, she will come to the United States to train in the warm weather.

The 22-year-old Kleybanova was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in the summer of 2011.

Alisa, Women's Tennis Blog wishes you a full recovery and successful return to tennis! (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Cari Champion, an anchor and courtside reporter for the TennisChannel, tweeted that Alisa Kleybanova, who was diagnosed with a serious illness, Hodgkin's lymphoma, has ended her chemo/radiation therapy and is even considering returning to the tennis courts soon.

The Russian reached a career-high ranking of No.20 in February 2011, but stopped playing after the Rome tournament in May due to the form of cancer. If everything goes well, the 22-year-old will slowly resume practicing in February in Florida and her coach is hopeful that she will play French Open tune-ups and the claycourt Grand Slam.

This favorable development of situation is still depending on a lot of factors, but at least it sounds promising. I'm really glad that Alisa has prospects of playing among the big names again, where she belongs. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Alisa Kleybanova hasn't played tennis since May and on the day of the celebration of her 22nd birthday she decided to write a public letter revealing a serious health problem that has kept her off the courts for the long time. The young WTA star has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer, and is currently being treated in Perugia, one of the best places in Italy specialized in that problem.

The Russian is going through the most difficult time in her life, but she is sure she will be able to defeat the cancer. However, when talking about her return to tennis she was not absolutely certain: "There's a chance that I'll be able to play tennis again." A lot of effort and patience will surly be necessary.

The last tournament Kleybanova played was Rome, where she lost in the second round to Shahar Peer. At that time Kleybanova was ranked 26th, now she's not much lower, at No.28. The two WTA titles she won (Kuala Lumpur and Seoul) came last year.

Alisa, Women's Tennis Blog wishes you peaceful and full recovery. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Former world No.1 Ana Ivanovic may have downgraded from playing Doha two years ago to playing the lower-rate Bali, but she’s on a good way to get back to the Top 20, being one win away from achieving that.

On the day of her 23th birthday, Ivanovic defeated Kimiko Date Krumm, the only player in the Bali field whom she wasn’t familiar with, and reached the final of the last tournament this season.

The 40-year-old Date Krumm won the first three games of the match and had double set point at 5-3, but Ivanovic then went on a six-game streak to win the first set and lead 2-0 in the second. Still, even though Ivanovic was serving for the match at 5-3 in the second set, Date Krumm managed to stay in there, forced a tiebreak and won it despite trailing at first. The third set was Ivanovic’s, as she broke her opponent in the first and seventh games to move into the final with a 7-5 6-7(5) 6-2 victory.

The other finalist is Alisa Kleybanova, who defeated Daniela Hantuchova 6-3 6-1 in the semis. Kleybanova was the one who took out defending champion Aravane Rezai in the previous round. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Newly-acquired BMW driving skills were of no help to Aravane Rezai against Alisa Kleybanova in their opening match at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions in Bali.

Together with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who was dominated by Ana Ivanovic on Thursday, Rezai practiced reversing, maneuvering and braking in the new wheels of BMW X5 in Bali, but on the tennis court it was Rezai’s opponent who was in control, beating her 6-1 6-2.

Rezai didn’t manage to defend her Bali title, but will always stay in the history of this new WTA tournament, as the winner of the inaugural edition of the Balinese event.

Kleybanova is looking for her third title in Asia this year, after Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. Her next opponent will be the winner of the match between Yanina Wickmayer and Daniela Hantuchova. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Russia’s Alisa Kleybanova came to the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo fresh off her second career title in Seoul and lost in the very first round to none other than Ana Ivanovic who had a disappointing showing in Seoul the week before, losing in the first round.

The world No.38 Ivanovic had a pretty easy victory over Kleybanova, 6-3 6-2, and as I read she played very well "great serving, fantastic movement, and phenomenal hitting on her forehand side."

Unlike last week in Seoul where Ivanovic lost in the first round and Dinara Safina won, this time we had reverse situation and Safina fell to Julia Goerges 6-1 5-7 6-2. (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Russian world No.28 Alisa Kleybanova won her second career title in her second Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles final with a 6-1 6-3 victory over 39th-ranked Czech Klara Zakopalova at the Hansol Korea Open. Kleybanova's first title came at the inaugural Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur this year.

After winning the longest tiebreak of the year (15-13) against Ksenia Pervak in the second round, the fifth-seeded Kleybanova didn’t lose more than three games per set on her way to the Seoul title.

Zakopalova, who advanced to the title match as top seed Nadia Petrova retired because of stomachache in the first set of their semifinal, has now lost seven of her eleven career finals. (photo via Hansol Korea Open)

Top seed Jelena Jankovic lost in straight sets in the second round of the Mercury Insurance Open to Alisa Kleybanova, despite leading 4-0 in the first set. Jankovic even had three set points at 5-3, but Kleybanova won eight straight games to take the score to 7-5 4-0 and eventually win the match 7-5 6-2.

The second-ranked Jankovic said she was afraid to run a lot because it was just her first match since injuring her left ankle in Portoroz two weeks ago. The world No.28 Kleybanova defeated Jankovic two times in 2009 and now leads their head-to-head record 3-2.

The 21-year-old Russian, who won her first WTA title in Kuala Lumpur in February, has reached only her third quarterfinal of the season. (photo: John Bolan)

Ana Ivanovic’s second-round match against Alisa Kleybanova was delayed by rain, but the inevitable was apparently waiting for Ivanovic and the former French Open champion lost with a stunning 6-3 6-0 score, with sets lasting 33 minutes each.

This has been Ivanovic’s earliest exit at the French Open ever! However, losing to Kleybanova is nothing new to the former world No.1 Ivanovic, as it has happened three of four times they played.

Kleybanova’s victory over Ivanovic at the 2010 French Open is not an upset, since the Russian is seeded 28th and Ivanovic’s low ranking, No.42 at present, ensured she wasn’t seeded. Both players had 6 break points in the match: Kleybanova converted five, while Ivanovic converted only one.

Kleybanova reached her first third round at the French Open, where she will play either eighth seed Agnieszka Radwanska or Yaroslava Shvedova. (photo: sr_cranks)

World number nine Jelena Jankovic reached her first semifinal of the season by beating Alisa Kleybanova 6-4 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

The sixth-seeded Serb, a semifinalist at Indian Wells two years ago, won four straight games to come back from 2-4 down in the second set and win the error-strewn quarterfinal against the 23rd-seeded Russian. Jankovic made 21 unforced errors, while Kleybanova piled up a total of 40. However, the Russian was better in the number of winners, hitting 19 compared to Jankovic’s seven.

The 20-year-old Kleybanova was coming off her maiden WTA title at the Malaysian Open last month, and Jankovic ended her eight-match winning streak.

Jankovic’s semifinal opponent will be the winner of the Samantha Stosur vs. Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez match. The other two already known semifinalists are good friends Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska. (photo by our reader Colleen)