RRI Sports Club

Tennis

Florin Orban, 12.10.2022, 13:45

Cluj-Napoca is hosting these days the most
important women’s tennis tournament in Romania. Transylvania Open is a WTA 250 tournament
with USD 251,750 in total prize money.

Participation in the tournament is remarkable,
with all 8 seeds among the world’s top 100 players. Only one Romanian player is
listed among the seeds, namely Ana Bogdan, number 46 in the world, seed no 3. However,
in Cluj-Napoca she failed to move past the first round, after being
defeated on Monday by Jule Niemeier of Germany, number 74 in the world, 7-6,
6-2.

Two other Romanians were outplayed on Tuesday: Irina
Bara, no 150 WTA, lost to Nuria Parrizas Diaz of Spain (75 WTA) 6-1, 7-5, and
Jaqueline Cristian (83 WTA) was defeated by seed no 7 Xiyu Wang of China, who
won 6-3, 6-3. Last year, Cristian reached the tournament’s quarter-finals. This
year, the only Romanian player to reach the second round was Gabriela Ruse. Ranking
104 in the world, she defeated Harmony Tan of France, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3.

Worth noting is that the best-ranking Romanian
players in the world, namely Simona Halep ( no 9 WTA), Irina Begu (34 WTA) and Sorana
Cîrstea (40 WTA), chose not to take part in Transylvania Open.

In related tennis news, the Romanian-born
Canadian player Bianca Andreescu qualified into the eighth-finals of the WTA 500
tournament in San Diego, after defeating Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 7-6, 4-6,
6-2. (AMP)