The Athlete of the Week

Tennis player Sorana Cîrstea

Florin Orban, 04.04.2023, 13:45

A number of tennis tournaments with millions of dollars in prize money
are held these days in the United States. Romanian players are also in
competition. Sorana Cîrstea, for example, last week reached the semifinals of
the WTA 1000 tournament in Miami. For this achievement, Radio Romania
International has named her the athlete of the week.

Sorana Cîrstea is currently in a good place in her career. In Indian
Wells, almost three weeks ago, she reached the quarterfinals. In Miami, she
reached the semifinals of a WTA 1000 tournament for the second time. Ten years
ago in Toronto, she even reached the finals, which she lost to Serena Williams.
This year in Florida, Cîrstea came close to that achievement in Toronto.
Without dropping a set, she defeated Mexico’s Fernanda Contreras Gomez, world
no. 4 Caroline Garcia of France and then the Czech players Karolina Muchova and
Marketa Vondrousova, followed by world no. 2 Arina Sabalenka of Belarus. In the
semifinals, however, Cîrstea lost to world no. 12 Petra Kvitova of the Czech
Republic, in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4. Kvitova went on to win the tournament,
defeating Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina. In the wake of her Miami performance, Sorana
Cîrstea went up 33 places in the world ranking, to reach no. 41.

Sorana Cîrstea was born in Târgovişte, in the south of Romania, on 7th
April 1990. She became a professional player in 2006, which she ended as no.
348 in the world. In her career so far, she won two WTA tournaments: in
Tashkent in 2008, and Istanbul, 13 later. She reached her highest ranking in
August 2013, when she was no. 21 in the world. She then went through a
difficult period, with lots of injuries, but she came back and in recent years
has been in top form. According to the WTA website she has earned 8 million
dollars from tennis.