The Athlete of the Week: Tennis player Irina Begu
Irina Begu won, in Iaşi, the sixth WTA tournament of her career and returned to the top 100 players in the world.
Florin Orban, 22.07.2025, 13:45
Over the weekend, the Unicredit Open tennis tournament took place in Iaşi (eastern Romania), a WTA 250 category competition with total prizes up for grabs worth 239 thousand dollars. The main draw featured six players from the top 100 of the world rankings, led by Armenian Elina Avanesyan, currently number 54 in the WTA hierarchy. Romanian Jaqueline Cristian was second on the list of seeded players. The main favorite stopped in the second round, defeated by Maria Lourdes Carlé of Argentina. Of the other favorites, two reached the final: Romanian Irina Begu, seed number 7, and Swiss Jil Teichmann, seed number 6. Begu won the match, 6-0, 7-5. On this occasion, she won 31,565 Euros and 250 WTA points, and Radio Romania International designated her the Athlete of the Week.
In Iaşi, Begu defeated Japan’s Nao Hibino 6-1, 6-2 in the first round. She had a more difficult match in the second round, against Victoria Jiménez Kasintseva, from Andorra, whom she defeated in three sets, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. In the quarterfinals, Irina defeated the Czech player Ana Siskova also in three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, and in the semifinals, she won against Jaqueline Cristian, 6-4, 6-4. Then followed the final with Teichmann, who brought Irina the sixth WTA title of her career.
Irina Camelia Begu was born in Bucharest, on August 26, 1990. Before the tournament in Iaşi, she had won WTA singles competitions in Tashkent, in 2012, then in Seoul, in 2015, in Florianopolis, a year later, in Bucharest, in 2017, then in Palermo in 2022. In the doubles, she has nine titles won. She won in Hobart, in 2012, alongside Monica Niculescu, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in 2013, with Anabel Medina Garrigues, in Rio de Janeiro, in 2014, with Maria Irigoyen, then in Seoul, the same year, with Lara Arruabarrena, and in Bucharest, in 2017, together with Raluca Olaru. Also in 2017, she won in Tianjin, alongside Sara Errani. In 2018, she won two more WTA doubles titles, in Shenzhen, with Simona Halep, and again in Bucharest, this time with Andreea Mitu. Her last doubles title was won in 2019, at the Thailand Open, with Monica Niculescu. She is ranked 82nd in the singles and 160th in the doubles in the world classifications. She has earned almost 9 million dollars from tennis in her career so far. (LS)
