Romanian tennis player Marius Copil
On Sunday, Romanian tennis player Marius Copil came very close to achieving the greatest performance of the Romanian mens tennis in the past decade.
Florin Orban, 30.10.2018, 13:38
On Sunday, Romanian tennis player Marius Copil came very close to achieving the greatest performance of the Romanian men’s tennis in the past decade. The Romanian lost the ATP 500 finals in Basel, Switzerland. Since July 13, 2008, no Romanian tennis player has won an ATP singles tournament. The last title in the professional circuit went to Victor Hanescu, who defeated Russian Igor Andreev in the finals of the Gstaad tournament.
On his way to the finals in Basel, Copil managed to secure wins against six players on higher ATP positions. Among them, the world’s sixth best player Marin Cilic of Croatia and German Alexander Zverev, the world’s number five, whom Copil defeated in the competition’s semis. Unfortunately the Romanian lost the finals game to Roger Federer in two sets, 7-6, 6-4. The Romanian put up a good play getting the upper hand in the first set 3-1, but Federer managed to end the set 3-4 and win through tiebreak 7-5. In the second set, Copil was also in the lead 3-0 and 4-1 but the Swiss challenger managed to draw the game and eventually win 6-4.
Born in Arad, western Romania, on October the 17th 1990 in a family of athletes. He took up tennis at the age of 7 and turned professional in 2008. He joined the world’s first 100 players only last year in May. Basel was his second ATP finals after that in Sofia early this year, where he lost to Bosnian Mirza Basic. Following the Basel tournament, Marius Copil, Romania’s best male tennis player made a leap forward of 33 places, up to the 60th position in the ATP ranking and Radio Romania International has designated him the athlete of the week.
