Romanian Tennis Players at the Australian Open

The headline grabbing sports event of the moment is the Australian Open.

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Florin Orban, 20.01.2016, 13:34

The headline grabbing sports event of the moment is held in the Southern hemisphere. Were speaking about the years first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open.

However, news is not so good as regards Romanians tennis players run in the aforementioned competition. The WTA 2nd placed tennis player, the Romanian Simona Halep, on whom all hopes were pinned for a bracing start at the Australian Open, was eliminated from the very first round. Halep conceded a 6-4, 6-3 defeat to Chinas Zhang Shuai, a contender who came straight from the qualifiers.

Another Romanian tennis player, 29-seed Irina Begu was also edged out of the competition, and again in the inaugural round. Begu conceded defeat to Swedens Johanna Larsson, 6-3, 6-2. Andreea Mitu was also eliminated in the inaugural round by her German opponent Julia Goerges. .

Monica Niculescu secured a 6-2, 6-1 win in the fixture against Brazils Teliana Pereira, and Alexandra Dulgheru clinched a 6-4, 6-2 win against Storm Sanders from Australia. Both Romanians have got through to the Australian Opens second round.

In the womens doubles on Wednesday, the Romanian-Belgian pair made of Raluca Olaru and Ysaline Bonaventure defeated the Serbian – German pair made of Jelena Jankovic and Andrea Petkovic, 6-4, 6-4.

Throughout the years, the Australian Open has been quite a challenge for Romanian tennis players. We recall that best-placed in Melbourne were Virginia Ruzici and Irina Sparlea. The former reached as far as the semifinals in 1980, where she conceded defeat to Hana Mandlikova, the then Czechoslovakian tennis player who walked away with the trophy. In 1997, Irina Sparlea was eliminated also in the quarterfinals and again conceded defeat to the winner of the trophy, the Swiss Martina Hingis.

In the mens singles, the Romanian Andrei Pavel was best-placed at the Australian Open, since he twice qualified for the round of last 16. We recall that in 1999 Andrei Pavel was eliminated in the round of last 16 by Russian contender Evgeny Kafelnikov. In 2004 Andrei Pavel conceded defeat to Spains Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Romanian tennis players best performance ever at the Australian Open occurred in 2012, when Horia Tecau jointly with US teammate Bethanie Mattek Sands won the mixed doubles finals.