Liudmila Samsonova was born on November 11, 1998, in Olenegorsk, Russia, to Dimitry Samsonova and Svetlana Samsonova. Her family moved to Italy when she was only a year old. Dimitry was a table tennis player and was instrumental in getting his daughter to play tennis.
Samsonova represented Italy in professional tennis from 2014 to 2018 before switching to the Russian flag. Despite this, she practices outside of Russia due to being unhappy with the conditions provided by the Russian Tennis Federation.
The big-hitting Samsonova made her debut on the WTA Tour with a handful of tournaments in 2019 and 2020. This included four appearances at Grand Slam events, although she did not manage a win at any of them. Her breakthrough came in 2021.
After getting her first Grand Slam victory at the Australian Open, She won her maiden WTA title on the grass courts of the Berlin Open in June by beating Belinda Bencic 1-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the final. Samsonova then entered the 2021 Wimbledon Championships as a wildcard and took full advantage.
After beating Kaia Kanepi, she defeated Jessica Pegula and 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens to make the fourth round before losing to the eventual runner-up Karolina Pliskova. The Berlin Open champion’s impressive 2021 ended with winning the Billie Jean King Cup with Team RTF. Samsonova played an instrumental role in this success by winning all five of her matches at the finals of the event.
2022 brought even more success for Samsonova. She won three titles, with all of them coming in the space of less than two months in August and September. These triumphs came in Washington, Cleveland, and Tokyo. The Russian reached another Grand Slam fourth round at the 2022 US Open.
She did not drop a set in the opening three rounds but then lost to Ajla Tomljanovic. Samsonova also progressed to her first WTA 1000 fourth round at the Indian Wells Open. Although Samsonova did not have a deep run at a Grand Slam in 2023, she broke new ground at the WTA 1000 level.
A very impressive run to the final at the Canadian Open in Montreal included wins against Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina in the semifinal. Unfortunately, she could not recover from a very late finish to her semifinal and was beaten by Jessica Pegula.
Samsonova made a second WTA 1000 final less than two months later at the China Open in Beijing. She prevailed against Rybakina for a second time in the semifinal but then ran into Iga Swiatek in close-to-unplayable form. The Russian lost 2-6, 2-6 and had to settle for a runner-up place once again.
