Success for Romanian Sports
Action-packed and replete with awards, thats how we can describe Romanian sports as this past weekend Romanian gymnasts walked home with many medals won at the European championships, and Romanias womens tennis team succeeded a historic qualification i
Bogdan Matei, 20.04.2015, 13:50
It took the Romanian women’s tennis team nearly a quarter of a century to secure its comeback among the elite of world tennis. The Romanians have not ranked among the world’s top eight teams since 1992, and the qualification for the so-called Fed Cup’s World Group brought a lot of joy to tennis fans in Romania. Romania defeated Canada away from home in Montreal, with the general score of 3-2. The Romanians turned the tables after the initial score of 0-1, winning 3-1 in the singles and losing the doubles match, at a point where a win would have only mattered for the record.
On Saturday, Françoise Abanda had earned the first point for the host team, defeating Romania’s Irina Begu, who sustained an injury while being on the court, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Alexandra Dulgheru balanced the score, defeating Eugenie Bouchard 6-4, 6-4. It was a clear victory, compelling standing ovations not only in the Montreal stands, packed with Romanians waving the Romanian flag, but also among Internet surfers around the world, who were simply shocked by the Canadian’s refusal to shake her contender’s hand at the press conference the previous day.
On Sunday, Eugenie Bouchard, world’s number 7, lost 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to Andreea Mitu, who is not even ranked among the world’s top 100 tennis players. Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru practically sealed the fate of the match, securing a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 win against Françoise Abanda. And so Andreea Mitu and Raluca Olaru’s defeat in the doubles against Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Sharon Fichman no longer mattered for the overall score of the match.
The sports press highlighted that the team led by the non-playing captain Alina Cercel-Tecsor scored such a great success, which it described as sensational and heroic, in the absence of the team’s best player, the world’s number three Simona Halep, who decided not to join her teammates for the game against Canada, given her extremely busy schedule of individual tournaments across Europe. Having reached the Fed Cup’s quarterfinals, right now Romania stands on a par with other powerful countries in women’s tennis, such as the Czech Republic, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Also on Sunday, the Romanian sports fans had another reason for joy, as in Montpellier, France, Romania’s 16-year-old Andreea Munteanu won gold in the beam event, and Marius Berbecar walked home with silver in the parallel bars event, at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Under-financed, according to sports pundits, and being also deprived of the world-acclaimed head coach Octavian Bellu’s contribution, Romanian gymnastics can still produce champions, living up to the record of dozens of Olympic, world and European medals. As for the 2017 edition of the European championships, to be hosted by Romania’s capital city Bucharest, experts have predicted even better results for Romanian gymnastics.
