Athlete of the week

Nur-Sultan, in Kazakhstan, hosted last week a WTA tournament with prize money totaling 238,000 USD. The competition is called Astana Open, after the former name of Kazakhstans capital city, which was changed by the national parliament in 2019.

Florin Orban, 05.10.2021, 13:10

This year, the doubles event was won by the Romanian Monica Niculescu and the German Anna-Lena Friedsam. For this result, Radio Romania International nominates Monica as Athlete of the Week.

In Astana Open, Niculescu and Friedsam defeated in the first round host country representatives Sofiya Chursina and Ekaterina Dmitricenko, 6-2, 7-5. In the quarter-finals, they outplayed the Ukrainian Valeria Strahova and Russian Ekaterina Yashina, 6-1, 6-1. Then came a victory in the semifinals, 6-4, 3-6, 10-8 against the Russians Vitalia Diatchenko and Yana Sizikova. In the final, Monica Niculescu and Anna-Lena Friedsam defeated 2 other Russian players, Angelina Gabueva and Anastasia Zaharova, 6-2, 4-6, 10-5. For the title in Nur-Sultan, Niculescu and Friedsam received 10,300 USD and 280 WTA points.

Monica Niculescu was born in Slatina, on September 25, 1987. She has been living in Bucharest since her early childhood, took up tennis at the age of 5 and has been a professional player since 2002. She has so far won 3 singles and 10 doubles tournaments, and she earned over 6.5 million US dollars throughout her career.

Her best position in the worlds singles ranking was 28th, in February 2012, while in the doubles ranking her best performance was an 11th place in the world in April 2018. She is now ranked 219th in the singles and 38th in the doubles.