Sports Weekend

A look at the main sporting events this weekend

România Internațional, 28.04.2023, 13:45

Romanian tennis player Irina Begu on Thursday qualified for the third
round of the WTA 1.000 tournament in Madrid, with more than seven million
dollars in prize money. In the second round the Romanian secured a 6-4, 7-5 win
against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. The other two Romanians, Sorana
Cirstea and Ana Bogdan, have been eliminated in the second round of the
competition: Cirstea by second-seeded Arina Sabalenka of Belarus, who won the
game in two sets 6-4, 6-3. Bogdan has been defeated by US challenger Shelby Rogers, who secured a 6-2,
6-2 win. Irina Begu will next take on Rogers in the competition’s third round.

Now let’s have a look at women’s handball because this weekend will be
seeing the first round of the Champions League quarterfinals. Both Romanian
sides present in the competition are playing on Sunday when Rapid Bucharest
will be up at home against Norwegian side Vipers Kristiansand, the last year’s
winner of the competition, while CSM Bucharest plays Team Esbjerg in Denmark.

In the men’s competitions, Romania’s national side will be trying to
qualify for European Championship in a decisive game against Ukraine in
Gummersbach, Germany. The Romanians are hankering for a win in the fourth group
of the qualifiers topped by Austria with 10 points, a team which has already
qualified for the competition’s next stage. Romania and the Faroe Islands come
next in the group, each with 4 points followed by Ukraine with two. The first
two sides in each of the 8 preliminary groups will advance to the competition’s
new stage together with four of the best sides on the third position. The final
tournament is due in Germany over 10th and 28th of
January 2024. Romania hasn’t qualified for a final men’s tournament since 1996.

Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe and Universitatea Cluj have qualified for the
finals of Romania’s Football Cup. Sepsi secured a 3-0 home win against CFR Cluj
while on Thursday Universitatea Cluj outperformed UTA one-nil. The finals is
due in Sibiu, southern Romania on May 24th.

This weekend will be seeing the matches of the sixth leg of Romania’s Football
Superleague. FCU Craiova will be playing Chindia Targoviste on Friday, while on
Saturday CS Mioveni plays FC Arges and Petrolul Ploiesti will be up against FC
Botosani.

On Monday, FC Voluntari takes on Universitatea Cluj while UTA plays at
home Hermannstadt of Sibiu. On Saturday, Sepsi plays Farul Constanta in a home
game while on Sunday Universitatea Craiova, on their own turf, plays FCSB. On
Monday the capital city Bucharest will be seeing an interesting match pitching
local side Rapid against CFR Cluj. Farul tops the ranking with 42 points,
followed by CFRR with 38 and FCSB with 37.

(bill)