The Athlete of the Week
Steliu Lambru, 19.06.2018, 13:53
A Romanian-British pair
made up of Mihaela Buzărnescu and Heather Watson conceded defeat to the Polish-US pair made of
Alicja Rosolska and Abigail Spears 6-3, 7-6, in the women’s doubles finals of
the lawn tennis tournament in Nottingham, Great Britain, an event with 226.750
USD in prize money.
It took the third-seeded
pair one hour and twenty-five minutes to outclass Buzărnescu and Watson, who
will receive a cheque of 6, 400 USD and 180 WTA points in the doubles rankings.
In the women’s singles, also in Nottingham, Buzarnescu, voted the WTA circuit’s
revelation for the month of May, was stopped in her tracks in the
quarterfinals. For her participation, Buzarnescu will receive a cheque 6,175
USD and 60 WTA points.
For her notable
performance, Radio Romania International has designated Buzarnescu the Athlete
of the Week.
Now in her thirties,
Mihaela Buzarnescu was born in Bucharest and at the moment is WTA 30th-placed.
In 2006, Buzarnescu and Raluca Olaru won the women’s doubles of the US Open’s
juniors version. However, a couple of shoulder injuries and two knee surgical
operations kept Buzarnescu away from the tennis court. Nonetheless, she put to
good use her long break since in 2016 Mihaela defended her doctoral
dissertation in physical education.
Buzarnescu made her
comeback to the competition circuit in 2017 and in 2018 she won the first WTA
tournament in her career, that is the women’s doubles finals in the Strasbourg
tournament. Also in 2018 Mihaela Buzarnescu had a noteworthy run in Roland
Garros, when she reached as far as the round of 16, being defeated by US
challenger Madison Keys. We recall that in the tournament’s round of 32
Buzarnescu had outperformed WTA number 4 Elina Svitolina.
For Mihaela Buzarnescu, the
Nottingham doubles final was the third such final she played in a women’s
double event. We recall that Buzarnescu won the Strasbourg finals jointly with
another Romanian, Raluca Olaru. The third doubles finals she played was in the
Prague tournament, when she paired up with Lidia Morozova of the Belarus. The
pair conceded defeat in that game. Buzarnescu has two more women’s finals in
hand this year; in Australia’ s Hobart tournament and in the Czech Republic in
Prague.
