Lyudmyla Viktorivna Kichenok (, ; born 20 July 1992) is a Ukrainian professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 3 in doubles. She is a two-time Grand Slam champion winning the 2024 US Open with Jeļena Ostapenko and the 2023 Wimbledon Championships with Mate Pavić becoming the first Ukrainian to do so. Kichenok has won ten additional doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including four with her twin sister, Nadiia. On 21 July 2014, she reached a her career-high singles rankings of No. 156.

Career

2015: WTA doubles title, singles top 10 win

In 2015, she won her first WTA Tour doubles title together with her sister. They escaped a 5–0 deficit in the second set tie-break of their 6–4, 7–6 defeat of Liang Chen and Wang Yafan in the Shenzhen Open final. This win made the Kichenoks the second pair of twins, after Karolína Plíšková and Kristýna Plíšková, to win a tour doubles title. They previously had been runners-up at Tashkent in 2011, and Shenzhen in 2014. She won the second tour doubles title at the Brasil Tennis Cup. During the Tianjin Open, Lyudmyla caused the biggest upset of the tournament with a top-10 win over Flavia Pennetta, world No. 8 and reigning US Open champion, in the first round; it has been the biggest win of her singles career so far.

2022: WTA 1000 title, world No. 9

At the Dubai Tennis Championships, she made the final in doubles, partnering Jeļena Ostapenko but they were defeated by second seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens. At the French Open, she reached the semifinals of a major for the first time in her career, partnering again with Ostapenko, falling to the eventual champions, Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic. She reached the top 20 in doubles on 6 June 2022. The following week, she won her sixth title at Birmingham with Ostapenko. At the Wimbledon Championships, they also reached the semifinals, again falling to the eventual champions, this time Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková. At the Cincinnati Open, she reached the final with Ostapenko defeating Australian Open finalists Haddad Maia and Anna Danilina and top seeds Kudermetova and Mertens. The pair won their biggest title defeating Nicole Melichar and Ellen Perez. Lyudmyla reached new career-highs in doubles of world No. 10, on 22 August 2022, and No. 9, on 12 September 2022. At the inaugural edition of the Tallinn Open, seeded third with her sister, she won her eighth title defeating top-seeded pair Nicole Melichar and Laura Siegemund in the final. She and Ostapenko qualified for the 2022 WTA Finals where they reached the semifinals.

2023: Wimbledon mixed doubles champion

With Mate Pavić, she won the title at Wimbledon in mixed doubles. She was selected to play in the 2023 WTA Elite Trophy with Ulrikke Eikeri as the defending champion, having won the trophy twice, the last time it was held in 2019, and also in 2018.

2024: US Open title, world No. 3, Olympics quarterfinal

At the 2024 Australian Open, she reached her first doubles final with her usual partner Jeļena Ostapenko, defeating reigning US Open champions and fourth seeds, Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe, in straight sets. Kichenok became the fourth Ukrainian female tennis player to reach a major doubles final, following sisters Kateryna Bondarenko and Alona Bondarenko who won the title at the 2008 Australian Open, and Elena Tatarkova who reached the final with Mariaan de Swardt of South Africa in the 1999 Wimbledon Championships. With her sister, she reached the quarterfinals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the US Open, seeded seventh in doubles, she reached another Grand Slam final with her partner Jelena Ostapenko, defeating Anna Danilina and Irina Khromacheva in the quarterfinal, and then Veronika Kudermetova and Chan Hao-ching in the semifinal, also in straight sets, 6–1, 6–2. Kichenok became the first Ukrainian tennis player to reach the semifinals in doubles at all four majors, and the first finalist at the US Open. Ostapenko and Kichenok defeated Kristina Mladenovic and Zhang Shuai in the final, in straight sets, to lift their first a Grand Slam trophy together, becoming the first Latvian and Ukrainian champions in women’s doubles. As a result, she reached a new career-high of world No. 3 in the doubles rankings, on 23 September 2024. Kichenok and Ostapenko qualified for the end-of-season WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as top seeds but were eliminated in the group stages after losing all three of their matches.

Performance timelines

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup/Billie Jean King Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.

Doubles

Grand Slam tournament finals

Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner–up)

Mixed doubles: 1 (title)

Other significant finals

WTA 1000 tournaments

Doubles: 1 (title)

WTA Elite Trophy

Doubles: 2 (2 titles)

WTA Tour finals

Doubles: 22 (11 titles, 11 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 12 (6 titles, 6 runner–ups)

Doubles: 51 (28 titles, 23 runner–ups)

Top 10 wins