Sports Flash
News from tennis, handball, and basketball
Florin Orban, 22.01.2026, 13:45
The Romanian tennis player Gabriela Ruse qualified for the first time in the third round of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam event of the year, after defeating the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, 6-4, 6-4, on Wednesday, in Melbourne.
The 28-year-old Romanian athlete, number 79 WTA, did not lose a single game on her serve, in a match that lasted an hour and 29 minutes.
Previously, in 2022 and 2025, Gabriela stopped in the second round in Melbourne. By qualifying for the third round on Wednesday, she equalled her top Grand Slam performance that far, achieved in 2024 at the US Open. Her next opponent at the Australian Open will be Russia’s Mirra Andreeva, seed no 8, on Friday. For Wednesday’s performance Ruse has already secured 130 WTA points.
The Romanian men’s handball team did not go past the group stage at EURO 2026, hosted by Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In Herning, Denmark, Romania lost all 3 games they played, against Portugal, Denmark and North Macedonia.
In volleyball, in the first leg of the CEV Cup round of 16, Dinamo Bucharest defeated the French side Poitiers, 3-0 at home on Tuesday. The return leg takes place in France on January 27. In contrast, Corona Braşov lost 3-0 on Wednesday, away from home, to Orion Stars Doetinchem (the Netherlands). The second leg is scheduled next week, in Braşov.
We end with basketball. The men’s team U-BT Cluj-Napoca was defeated on Tuesday, away from home, by the Slovenian team Olimpija Ljubljana, 86-80 in the EuroCup Group A. The Romanian champions are going through a difficult period, with 4 defeats in the last 5 matches in all competitions, and 2 failures in their last 3 matches in the EuroCup. The vice-champions CSM-CSU Oradea fare no better. They were left out of the FIBA Europe Cup two stages before the end of the second group stage, after being defeated away from home on Wednesday by Bosna Sarajevo 76-63, in Group L. With only 1 win in the first 4 games, Oradea no longer have any chance of reaching the top 2 places in their group. (AMP)
