The Athlete of the Week – Tennis Player Florin Mergea

The pair made up of the Romanian Florin Mergea and Oliver Marach from Austria won the men’s doubles of the ATP tournament held in the Chilean city of Vina del Mar last week. In the finals, Mergea and Marach snatched a 6-3, 6-4 win against Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, the favorites number two of the tournament.

Florin Orban, 11.02.2014, 13:18

The pair made up of the Romanian Florin Mergea and Oliver Marach from Austria won the men’s doubles of the ATP tournament held in the Chilean city of Vina del Mar last week. In the finals, Mergea and Marach snatched a 6-3, 6-4 win against Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, the favorites number two of the tournament.

Mergea and Marach, who played their first ever finals together, were rewarded with 23,500 dollars and 250 ATP points. Before the Vina del Mar tournament, the Romanian had only one ATP men’s doubles title on his record sheet which he won in Vienna in 2013, jointly with the Czech Lukas Rosol. Marach’s record, however, was significantly better, including no less than 12 wins, in the company of various fellow tennis players.

For his feat in the Vina Del Mar tournament, Radio Romania International has designated Florin Mergea the Athlete of the Week.

Mergea and Marach’s most dramatic confrontation in their Chilean run was their eighth finals match, when the two snatched a 7-5, 5-7, 11-9 win in the tiebreak which proved crucial against the main favorites, the Columbians Santiago Giraldo and Alejandro Gonzalez. In the semifinals, they beat the main favorites, the Spaniards Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez, winners of the 2012 edition of the Champions’ Tournament. After that hard-fought win, it came just as natural for the two to win the finals.

Florin Mergea was born in the South-Western city of Craiova on January 26th, 1985, into a family of medical doctors. As a junior tennis player, he paired up with Horia Tecau, the two jointly winning a string of top-flight tournaments. At present, Mergea is a 48-seed in the world doubles standings.