RRI Sports Club – Tennis and football
Good results for Romanian athletes all around this week
Steliu Lambru, 16.08.2017, 12:45
Tennis player Simona Halep, WTA no. 2, has qualified to the round of 16 at the WTA tournament in Cincinatti. Halep eased past Taylor Townsend of the United States, 134 WTA, score 6-4, 6-1. Townsend had previously eliminated Irina Begu in the first round, 6-7, 6-1, 6-3. On Thursday Halep will take on the winner of the match pitting Roberta Vinci of Italy against Anastasjia Sevastova of Latvia. Simona Halep lost the 2015 Cincinnati final to Serena Williams and in 2016 she reached the semi-finals.
In the women’s doubles, the pair made up of Monica Niculescu of Romania and Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan has qualified to the round of 16 after knocking out Johanna Konta of Great Britain and Christina McHale of the United States, 6-2, 6-2. In the next round Niculescu and Hsieh will take on Kristina Mladenovic of France and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.
In the men’s doubles, Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands have also reached the round of 16 after defeating Jared Donaldson and Stefan Kozlov of the United States, 6-3, 6-4. Tecau and Rojer will next play Raven Klaasen of South-Africa and Rajeev Ram of the United States. Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer last year played in the finals, while in 2012 Tecau won the trophy alongside Robert Lindstedt of Sweden.
We move on to news from football. Romanian football club FCSB held Sporting Lisbon of Portugal to a blank draw away from home in the first leg of the Champions League group phase playoffs. The result is a promising one for FCSB, giving the Romanian side the upper hand in the return leg scheduled for next week on August 23 on National Arena stadium in Bucharest. Mihai Pintilii will be unavailable for next week’s match, as he was given a red booking in the second half on Tuesday.
Romanian champions Viitorul Constanta will take on FC Red Bull Salzburg on home turf on Thursday to secure a place in the Europa League group phase. (Translated by V. Palcu)
