Athlete of the Week

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Florin Orban, 22.03.2022, 13:23

Simona Halep remains Romania’s highest-ranking tennis
player. On Monday she made a comeback among the world’s first 20 players, with a
7 position jump currently placing her on the 19th position. That was
possible thanks to the performance she obtained at WTA 1000 in Indian Wells, where
she made it to the semifinals. For her latest Californian performance, Radio
Romania International has designated Halep Athlete of the Week.

At Indian Wells, Simona entered directly into the
second round and played Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova whom she defeated 6-2,
4-6, 6-2. In the third round she secured a two-set win against Cori Gauff of
the USA, 6-3, 6-4. In the round of 16, she clinched a 6-1, 6-4 win against her
compatriot Sorana Cîrstea and defeated Croatian player Petra Martic in the
quarterfinals, 6-1, 6-1. It was third-seeded Iga Świątek of Poland who stopped
Halep in her tracks in the semifinals with a 7-6, 6-4 win. The Polish player
eventually won the tournament after a two-set win 6-4, 6-1 against Maria
Sakkari of Greece.

Simona Halep was born on 27th September
1991, in Constanţa, south-eastern Romania and made her debut in international
competitions in 2006, when she played her first games in the ITF tournament. In
2010, she became part of Top 100 and four years later she made it to the second
position in the world ranking, which at that time was the best performance
obtained by a Romanian tennis player. Three years later, in October 2017, she
became the world’s best tennis player, a position she left in January 2018. She
made a comeback to that position that year in February and kept it until early
2019 after the Australian Open. She topped the WTA ranking for 64 weeks and her
prize closet includes two Grand Slam trophies, Roland Garros in 2018 and
Wimbledon 2019.

(bill)