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Florin Orban, 04.02.2019, 15:06

The pair made of Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu won the women’s doubles at the WTA tennis tournament in Thailand’s Hua Hin, an event with 250,000 USD up for grabs. In this past Sunday’s final, Begu and Niculescu outclassed the Russian-Chinese couple made up of Ana Blinkova / Yafan Wang, 2-6, 6-1, 12-10 in super tie-break. It was the second WTA doubles title Begu and Niculescu jointly won, after the 2012 tournament in Hobart. We recall that as a competing pair, Begu and Niculescu had also played three other finals, in Luxembourg in 2012 and in Wuhan and Moscow, in 2015.

Romanian wrestlers won nine medals as part of the Henri Deglane wrestling Grand Prix hosted by the city of Nice in France. The competition kick-started on Friday, when in the women’s version, Andreea Beatrice Ana won the top position in the 53rd kilogram category, Adina Popescu was the runner-up wrestler in the 65-kilogram category, while Kriszta Incze came in third in the 62 kilogram category.

In the men’s version of the same competition, free wrestling style, on Saturday, Maxim Vasilioglu in the 74-kilogram category came in second, and so did Omar Nazhmudinov, in the 79 –kilogram category. In the Greek-Roman style, on Sunday, Florin Tita was the runner-up wrestler in the 55-kilogram category, Vlad Mariea came in 3rd in the 77-kilogram category. In the 130-kilogram category, Leonard Berei also came in third.

In a home confrontation on Saturday, CSM Bucharest outperformed Slovenian opponents Krim Mercator Ljubljana, 32-26, in a fixture counting towards the Champions League’s main Group 2. Gyor are at the top of the table in their group, with 11 points. Vipers Kristiansand and CSM Bucharest are 2nd and 3rd-placed, respectively, with 8 points each, but with a different goal average. Hungarian side Ferencvaros Budapest are 4th-placed, while 5th-placed are Krim Ljubljana, with 3 points. German team Thuringer are at the bottom of the table in the group.

In the EHF Cup’s Group A, in a home fixture they played this past Sunday, Măgura Cisnădie was outclassed by Danish opponents Team Esbjerg, 32-19. In Group D, SCM Craiova drew against another Danish team, Nykøbing Falster Håndbold, 20-all, away from home. Both Magura Cisnadie and SCM Craiova are at the bottom of the table in their groups.

In news from football, Romanian midfielder Răzvan Marin scored a goal for his team Standard Liege, which this past Sunday on home turf secured a 2-1 win in the 24th round of Belgium’s domestic championship, in the derby they played against Anderlecht Brussels. In Israeli’s football championship, also on Sunday, Romanian defender Gabriel Tamas scored the equalizer in the away game Hapoel Haifa played against Maccabi Tel Aviv. The match ended 1-all and counted towards the 21st round in the domestic championship.

This past weekend saw matches being played, counting towards League One’s 22nd round. On Friday, FC Botosani secured a 1-nil away win against Concordia Chiajna, while in Medias, the local side Gaz Metan drew against Astra Giurgiu, 1-all. On Saturday, Dunarea Calarasi and FCSB drew, also 1-all, and again 1-all was the score of the match pitting CFR Cluj against FC Hermannstadt. On Sunday, FC Voluntari thrashed Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe on home turf, 4-2, while in Ovidiu, in the south-east, the local side Viitorul Constanta ended the match against Universitatea Craiova in a blank draw. CFR are the leader in the standings, with 47 points, while FCSB are the runner-up team, with 41 points.