Athlete of the Year on RRI – Tennis player Simona Halep

2013 brought a lot of remarkable achievements for Romanian sports, such as European titles in several sports, weightlifting, fencing, gymnastics and rowing. However, the most spectacular of evolutions was that of tennis player Simona Halep.

România Internațional, 03.01.2014, 12:02

2013 brought a lot of remarkable achievements for Romanian sports, such as European titles in several sports, weightlifting, fencing, gymnastics and rowing. However, the most spectacular of evolutions was that of tennis player Simona Halep.

She climbed from 47th to 11th place in the world standings, and was designated by WTA the Most Improved Player of the Year. The last Romanian to accomplish that was Virginia Ruzici in 1978. For this reason, we selected her as Athlete of the Year.

Simona’s journey started in May last year in Rome. She qualified to the semi-finals, defeating several top players. Some of them were two of the favorites, such as no. 4, Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, and no. 13, Roberta Vinci of Italy. Let us not forget also Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, former no. 1 in the world. Simona was bested by Serena Williams, the main favourite in the competition, 6-3, 6-0.

Then followed the victory in the Nuremberg WTA tournament, with prizes totalling 235,000 dollars. She eventually disposed of Andrea Petkovich of Germany 6-3, 6-3.

After Nuremberg, she won several WTA championships, including those in Budapest, New Haven and Sofia. She got very close to the top 10 list, which only two Romanians have ever reached, Virginia Ruzici, who got to number 8, and Irina Sparlea, who got to number 7.

At the end of the season, Simona said she would no longer work with coach Adrian Marcu, who trained her in the second half of the year. However, she is still holding on to Virginia Ruzici, who is her manager.

To wrap up our sports feature, let us remind you that Simona Halep will start the new WTA season in Sydney, Australia, between January 5th and 11th.