Kleybanova made her senior tennis début in 2003 aged just fourteen, and won the very first ITF tournament she entered.To date her career-best achievements have been reaching the fourth round at two Grand Slams at Wimbledon and Australian Open as a direct entrant, two WTA Tour Tier II quarter-finals (Antwerp, 2008; Eastbourne, 2008) as a qualifier. Additionally, she has reached one Tier I third round (Miami, 2008) as a qualifier, and one Tier IV quarter-final (Fes, 2008) as a direct entrant. At other WTA Tour events, she has yet to progress beyond the second round of the main draw; but her WTA career is still young, and she has battled successfully through qualifying to enter one Grand Slam and several further WTA main draws aside from her five notable main draw successes described above.
At the higher levels of the ITF circuit, she has reached one $100,000 quarter-final, two $75,000 quarter-finals, one $50,000 final and one $50,000 semi-final. In addition, at the lower levels, she has won seven $25,000 titles and one $10,000 title outright, and has reached two further $25,000 finals and another three $25,000 semifinals.
She has also experienced success in the juniors; she won the 2003 Wimbledon Championships girls' doubles with Sania Mirza, aged 13. Three years later, she won the same competition with fellow rising Russian star Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. She also won the girls' doubles at the 2005 US Open with Czech Nikola Franková.
Many critics have cited that Kleybanova's style of play is the modern day version of American Lindsay Davenport.
Kleybanova started off the year falling in three sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at the Brisbane International in the first round where Alisa was the 5th seed. She then fell to World No. 3 Svetlana Kuznetsova in the first round of the Medibank International, falling 5-7 in the third set..
Kleybanova was seeded 27th at the 2010 Australian Open. She lost a hard fought three setter to Justine Henin in the third round, despite having been near match point numerous times.
At the 2010 Fed Cup, Kleybanova represented Russia along with Svetlana Kuznetsova. Kleybanova fell in three sets to Jelena Janković in her first match, but blew past Ana Ivanović in her second match. Kleybanova and Kuznetsova then defeated Ivanović and Janković in doubles to help Russia advance.
At the Open GDF Suez in Paris, Kleybanova fell to World No. 12 Flavia Pennetta. At the 2010 Malaysian Open, Kleybanova won her first WTA singles title, defeating World No. 7 Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-2 in the final.Kleybanova's good form continued into the 2010 BNP Paribas Open where she was seeded 23rd. She, like all seeds, received a bye into the second round where she then defeated qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-1.
In the third round she overcame another tight three-setter, defeating former World No.1, 2009 US Open Champion and No. 14 seed Kim Clijsters 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4). In the fourth round she came back from a set down and had to work hard to defeat an in-form Carla Suárez Navarro (who took out the top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round) 2-6, 7-6(2), 6-4. Kleybanova played Jelena Janković in the quarter-final.This time,Jelena celebrated ,winning 6-4, 6-4
