Radio Romania International Sports club
The latest from tennis
Florin Orban, 23.01.2024, 13:45
The year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian tennis Open, has
now reached the quarterfinal stage. A couple of seeded competitors, among whom
the world’s number one tennis player, Poland’s Iga Swiatek, have already left
the competition.
The Romanian participants, in the singles but also in the double’s events
have already been eliminated from the competition’s very first week. The last Romanian
to have stepped onto the tennis court was Victor Cornea, who this past Saturday was defeated
in the Open’s men’s doubles event, where he paired up with India’s Nsriram
Balaji. Cornea and Balaji were defeated by the 10th-seeded Salvadorian-Croatian
pair made of Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic, 3-6, 3-6. 69th-placed according to
the world’s doubles rankings, Victor Cornea participated for the third time in
a Grand Slam tournament. We recall that in 2023 Cornea took part in Roland
Garros and the US Open. In the recently-held edition of the Australian Open, in
the first round Victor Cornea and Nsriram Balaji defeated the all-Italian pair made of
Matteo Arnaldi and Andrea Pellegrino, 6-3, 6-4. The Romanian-Indian pair has thus
secured a cheque of 53, 000 Australian Dollars. Since 2021, Victor Cornea was the first
Romanian player to have been included in the men’s event main draw in a Grand
Slam tournament. The last such Romanian had been Horia Tecău, who retired in
2022. We recall that, jointly with the German Kevin Krawietz, Tecau secured his
last Grand Slam wins at the 2021 edition of the Australian Open.
In 2024
in Melbourne, the last Romanian to have proved her mettle in the women’s doubles
was Ana Bogdan. In the second round, Bogdan and the Spanish Slovak-born Rebeka
Masarova sustained a 3-6, 1-6 defeat by the 6th-seeded American-Japanese
pair made of Desirae Krawczyk and Ena Shibahara.
In the women’s singles, no Romanian
tennis player was could go past the first round. The Romanian tennis is emphatically
deprived of the presence of Simona Halep. Former WTA, number one tennis player still
feels the pinch of her suspension, following doping charges. Halep awaits the
retrial of her case by Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, in the first
decade of February 2024.
