RRI Sports Club
Florin Orban, 24.11.2021, 11:14
Romania has five players in the WTA top 100. Simona Halep
is the highest-ranked, on 20, but this is her lowest ranking at the end of a season
in the last nine years. The other Romanian players in top 100 retain their
current places, with Sorana Cîrstea on 38, Irina Begu on 60, Jaqueline Cristian
on 71 and Gabriela Ruse on 85. In the doubles ranking, Romania has six players
in top 100. Raluca Olaru on 36, Monica Niculesu on 39, Irina Begu down one
place to 64, Irina Bara goes up 12 places to 84 after winning the title in Montevideo,
Andreea Mitu on 98 and Gabriela Ruse on 99.
In men’s tennis, Marius Copil, who is no. 274 in the
world, is the highest-ranked Romanian tennis player in the singles
classification. Horia Tecău went up one place to no. 17 in the doubles ranking
after the ATP Finals, but he retired from professional tennis last week, after
a career of 18 years in which he won 38 ATP titles and played 24 finals. He also
won two Grand Slams in men’s doubles, at Wimbledon in 2015 and the US Open in
2017, both times together with Jean-Julien Rojer of The Netherlands, and a mixed
doubles title at the Australian Open together with Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the
US, in 2012. At the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, Tecău won the silver medal together with Florin Mergea.
Despite announcing his retirement, Horia
Tecău will play one more event this weekend in Romania’s Davis Cup doubles match
against Peru, hosted by Cluj Napoca. The winning nation will advance to the qualifiers
for the 2022 Davis Cup Finals, which will bring together the best 16 nations in
the world. Other Romanian players competing against Peru in Cluj Napoca are
Marius Copil, Nicolae Frunză, who is no. 626 in the ATP singles ranking and no.
954 in the doubles ranking, Ştefan Paloşi, no. 647 in the singles ranking and 747
in the doubles ranking, and Gabi Adrian Boitan, 722 in the singles ranking and 1,311
in the doubles ranking. Peru’s highest-ranked player is Juan Pablo Varillas, no.
130 in the singles ranking and 376 in the doubles ranking. (CM)
