Elena Alekseyevna Makarova (,, born 1 February 1973), is a former Russian professional tennis player. Makarova played in the WTA Tour from 1991 to 1999. Her peak performances were in 1995, when she was ranked world No. 36 in doubles, and in 1996, when she was ranked No. 43 in singles. In 2011, she coached Russian tennis player Margarita Gasparyan.

WTA Tour finals

Singles: 2 (2 runner-ups)

Doubles: 1 (1 title)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 11 (6 titles, 5 runner-ups)

Doubles: 8 (6 titles, 2 runner-ups)

Head to head

Junior Grand Slam finals

Girls' singles: 1 (runner-up)

Legacy

In Russia, despite her modest popularity as a top-50 player, Makarova is well-known for providing her explanation for the issue of LGBT-athletes being more common among female tennis players than on the ATP Tour (while the most popular example was Toomas Leius according to the locally popular 1993 short story Fugue with [Male] Tennis Player by Mikhail Veller). She said the following: “When you get tired after a match or training, you no longer want to dress up or go to a party. Therefore, some tennis players solve the problem of sex [absence] by means of "lesser bloodshed" [local idiom which means "easy" in a dual meaning: the simpler the better or silly] — with each other. Besides, you can't afford to take your beloved man with you — he has to work himself". The last part has been clarified to mean that "most female tennis players cannot afford traveling with their beloved man financially".