Athlete of the week

Tennis player Irina Bara

Florin Orban, 07.11.2023, 13:45

Attention-grabbing in International women’s tennis last week was the GNP Seguros WTA Finals Cancun. Because of the bad weather conditions, the competition
came to a close as late as Monday, with Polish Iga Swiantek emerging as winner.
However, the international calendar has other tournaments on schedule, not so important
events, such as the ITF tournament hosted by the Greek city of Heraklion on the Island of Crete, an event with 40,000 USD in prize money. Of the Romanian women
tennis players taking part in the competition, the best was WTA 307th-placed,
37-year-old Cristina Dinu, who reached as far as the semi-finals. However, Dinu
was defeated by WTA 109th-palced tennis player and top-seeded in Heraklion,
Dianne Parry of France, 6-3,
7-6. Irina Bara’s performance in
the women’s doubles event was above par since in the final, Irina and Slovenia’s Dalila Jakupovic outclassed the Romanian-Greek
pair made of Oana Gavrilă and Sapfo Sakellaridi, 3-6, 7-6, 10-8.

Reason enough
for Radio Romania International to designate Irina Bara the Athlete of the
Week.

Irina Bara was born on March 18, 1995,
in the town of Ştei, in western Romania. It was not until 2015 that she made
her debut on the main draw of a WTA tournament when she paired up with Mihaela
Buzarnescu in the women’s doubles event as part of the tournament hosted by Romania’s capital city, Bucharest. Irina’s progress has been a constant one ever since, as in May, 2019 she saw a
record-high in terms of WTA rankings, being 56th-placed. According
to the as-it-stands WTA women’s doubles table, Irina Bara is 120th-placed. In
2021, Irina won the women’s doubles final as part of the WTA tournament in Cluj-Napoca,
jointly with Georgian tennis player Ekaterine Gorgodze. Irina Bara’s career-best
in women’s singles occurred in 2020 when she reached as far as the third round, in the Australian Open and Roland Garros. At present, Irina Bara is 173rd-placed, according to the WTA rankings.

This week, Irina Bara is among the
tennis players summoned by Romanian team’s non-playing captain Horia Tecău, for
the match against Serbia. The Billie
Jean King Cup confrontation will be hosted by an indoor clay court in Kraljevo.
Also part of the team are Jaqueline Cristian, Gabriela Ruse, Anca Todoni and Monica Niculescu. The
winning side will prove its mettle in the qualifiers for the Billie Jean King
Cup’s final tournament.