Irina has officially retired from tennis. TBE is possibly right in that she should have maybe played less WTA events and more challengers in 2002, but you might be interested to know that whilst she was working very hard and practising, she was constatntly feeling tired , and it wasn't until just before Roland Garros last year that she discovered she had glandular fever. Doctors reckon she may have been ill as far back as Tokyo, just after the Australian Open. She has also had problems with neck and back injuries, so really struggled to get back on track again:-(
On a positive note, she married Wayne Black in her home city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 12th July

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Any of you who were at the U.S Open may have spotted her, although many people also mistake her for her good friend, Dinara Safina!