Tennis Festival in Bucharest

Each year Romania's capital hosts a tennis tournament as part of the ATP 250 calendar.

România Internațional, 30.04.2014, 13:39

Each year, Romania’s capital hosts a tennis tournament as part of the ATP 250 calendar. Until recently, the open air clay court competition was held in September, but starting in 2012 it was moved to the end of April. This year’s edition, called the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy, with 426,605 Euros in prize money, ended on Sunday. The winner was Bulgarian player Grigor Dimitrov, ranked 16th in the world, who won against Czech player Lukas Rosol, last year’s winner, in two sets, 7-6, 6-1.

The doubles part of the tournament was won by Romanian Horia Tecau and Dutch player Jean-Julien Rojer, defeating the Polish couple Mariusz Fyrstenberg/ Marcin Matkowski 6-4, 6-4. Horia Tecau can now boast 19 ATP wins in the doubles. Three of them have been won this year alongside Rojer in Zagreb, Casablanca and Bucharest.

One of this week’s attractions was the friendly game played on Saturday night by Cedric Pioline, former 5th in the world, Goran Ivanisevic, former second, Andrei Pavel, the best Romanian player of the new millennium, and Ilie Nastase, former world champion, the greatest Romanian tennis player of all time.

Pioline paired with Ivanisevic against Pavel and Nastase. The Romanians emerged victorious, 6-2, 3-3, and a tie break won by 2 points.