Athlete of the week

Late last week, Istanbul, Turkey hosted a WTA tournament with 235,238 USD in total prize money. Taking part were several top-level players, including Belgiums Elise Mertens, seed no 1, Croatias Petra Martic, seed no 2, and Russias Daria Kasatkina, seed no 4. But the winner was a Romanian, Sorana Cîrstea, who was designated Athlete of the Week by Radio Romania International.

Florin Orban, 27.04.2021, 11:43

Late last week, Istanbul, Turkey hosted a WTA tournament with 235,238 USD in total prize money. Taking part were several top-level players, including Belgiums Elise Mertens, seed no 1, Croatias Petra Martic, seed no 2, and Russias Daria Kasatkina, seed no 4. But the winner was a Romanian, Sorana Cîrstea, who was designated Athlete of the Week by Radio Romania International.

Soranas performance in Istanbul was no walk in the park. In the first round, she beat Kateryna Kozlova, of Ukraine, 6-4, 7-6, and in the second she won against Russian Anastasia Potapova, 7-6, 6-4. The quarter-finals brought her face to face to Fiona Ferro of France, who had outplayed the Croatian Petra Martic. Ferro quit for health reasons after losing the first set 6-4 to Cîrstea.

In the semis, Sorana defeated another Ukrainian player, Marta Kostyuk, cu 6-4, 6-4. Next came Elise Mertens of Belgium, who lost the final to Sorana 1-6, 6-7, after 1 hour and 40 minutes. The Romanian thus won the tournament without losing a single set.

Sorana Cîrstea was born in Târgovişte (southern Romania), on 7 April 1990. She became a professional player in 2006, when she finished 348 in the world standings. She has only won one other WTA tournament in her career, the one in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2008.

August 2013 brought her to the highest WTA place in her career – 21. A rather difficult period followed, with physical problems, but Sorana recovered and made a remarkable comeback. Early last week she was no 67 WTA, and the win in Istanbul pushed her up to no 58. (tr. A.M. Popescu)