Elena Pampoulova (also Elena Wagner, Elena Pampoulova-Bergomi, ; 17 May 1972 – 19 April 2023) was a Bulgarian tennis player. In her career, she won one singles title and three doubles titles on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

. Her tennis career spanned from 1988 to 2001. Pampoulova's career-high singles ranking is world No. 62, her best doubles ranking is No. 38, both achieved in September 1996.

Tennis career

Pampoulova played for Bulgaria and the

Bulgaria Fed Cup team The Bulgaria women's national tennis team () represents Bulgaria in Billie Jean King Cup tennis competition and are governed by the Bulgarian Tennis Federation. History Bulgaria competed in its first Fed Cup in 1966. Until the 1996 edition of t ...

from 1988 to 1992. Pampoulova was one of only three players to represent Bulgaria in tennis at the

1992 Olympics 1992 Olympics may refer to: *1992 Summer Olympics, which were held in Barcelona, Spain *1992 Winter Olympics The 1992 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVI Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Albertville '92 (Franco-Provença ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(together with

Katerina Maleeva Katerina Georgieva Maleeva (; born 7 May 1969) is a former top 10 Bulgarian tennis player. She won eleven singles and two doubles WTA Tour titles. Her best position in the WTA rankings was No. 6 in 1990. Biography Born in Sofia, Maleeva is t ...

and

Magdalena Maleeva Magdalena Georgieva Maleeva (, ; born 1 April 1975) is a Bulgarian former professional tennis player. Her best WTA singles ranking was world No. 4. She played on the WTA Tour competing in singles and doubles, from April 1989 to October 2005 ...

). From 1997 to 1999, Elena played for the

Germany Fed Cup team The Germany women's national tennis team represents Germany in Billie Jean King Cup tennis competition and are governed by Deutscher Tennis Bund. Current team ''Statistics correct as of 12 April 2025.'' Eva Lys at Wimbledon 2024 (cropped2). ...

. She won 13 career titles in singles (one WTA Tour) and 11 titles in doubles (three of them from WTA Tour). Her first tennis coach was her own mother, Bulgarian tennis player Lubka Radkova. Elena's father, Emilian Pampoulov, is also a tennis player.

Personal life

On 11 July 2006, Pampoulova married her long-time boyfriend, Swiss banker Christian Bergomi. Their son Alex was born in early 2008. The couple lived in Switzerland, where Elena was an asset manager. In June 2022 she was found guilty of

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

offences together with

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and three other defendants. Prior to the trial, Credit Suisse ''unreservedly rejected as meritless all allegations raised against her and asconvinced that she asinnocent.'' Both the bank and Pampoulova announced their intentions to appeal the court decision. Pampoulova died on 19 April 2023, at the age of 50 after an illness.

WTA Tour finals

Singles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner–up)

Doubles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 14 (12 titles, 2 runner–ups)

Doubles: 13 (8 titles, 5 runner–ups)

Fed Cup

Elena Pampoulova debuted for the

in 1988. She has a 5–6 singles record and a 3–2 doubles record (8–8 overall).

Singles (5–6)

Doubles (3–2)

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Notes

External links

* * * * * *
Bulgarian Olympic Committee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pampoulova, Elena 1972 births 2023 deaths Bulgarian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Bulgarian female tennis players German expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland German female tennis players German people of Bulgarian descent Olympic tennis players for Bulgaria Tennis players from Sofia Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics 20th-century German sportswomen