{"id":980861,"date":"2026-02-10T13:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/?p=980861"},"modified":"2026-02-10T10:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:41:49","slug":"athlete-of-the-week-tennis-player-sorana-cirstea-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/news-and-current-affairs\/sport\/athlete-of-the-week-tennis-player-sorana-cirstea-2-id980861.html","title":{"rendered":"Athlete of the Week \u2013 Tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Romanian tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea has won the fourth WTA singles title of her career, securing victory last week at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transylvania.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The tournament was Romania&#8217;s first major tennis event of the year. Part of the WTA 250 series, the women&#8217;s competition offered total prize money of 283 thousand US dollars and was held at BTarena, the largest sports hall in Cluj, with a capacity for up to 10,000 spectators. The event was won by the home favourite, Sorana C\u00eerstea, which is why we have designated her Athlete of the Week on RRI.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Entering the Transylvania Open as the number 3 seed, C\u00eerstea started her run with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Uzbekistan&#8217;s Kamilla Rachimova. She followed this with a dominant 6-1, 6-0 win against Slovenia&#8217;s Tamara Zidan\u0161ek.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Her quarter-final match against Austria&#8217;s Anastasia Potapova proved to be her tightest contest in Cluj, which she eventually won 7-5, 6-4. In the semi-finals, she faced Ukrainian qualifier Daria Snigur, who had defeated another Romanian, Jaqueline Cristian, in the second round, and secured a convincing 6-0, 6-3 victory.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The final pitched C\u00eerstea against the top seed, Britain&#8217;s Emma R\u0103ducanu, a player with Romanian heritage and a former US Open champion, who was coming off a hard-fought semi-final. C\u00eerstea triumphed emphatically, 6-0, 6-2, to become the first Romanian player to win the Cluj tournament.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sorana C\u00eerstea was born in T\u00e2rgovi\u0219te, southern Romania, on 7 April 1990. She turned pro in 2006, finishing that year ranked 348<sup>th<\/sup> in the world. The Cluj title marks the fourth WTA tournament victory of her career, following the victories in Tashkent (2008), Istanbul (2021) and Cleveland (2025).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Her career-high singles ranking is world number 21, achieved in August 2013. As a result of Saturday&#8217;s victory, she has climbed to 31<sup>st<\/sup> in WTA rankings, reclaiming her status as the highest-ranked Romanian tennis player. According to the WTA&#8217;s official website, her career prize money now exceeds 10 million US dollars. (VP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Romanian tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea has won the fourth WTA singles title of her career, securing victory last week at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transylvania. &nbsp; The tournament was Romania&#8217;s first major tennis event of the year. Part of the WTA 250 series, the women&#8217;s competition offered total prize money of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":980814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[31470,162765,185263],"coauthors":[113302],"class_list":["post-980861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-sorana-cirstea","tag-transylvania-open-en","tag-wta-250-series"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Athlete of the Week \u2013 Tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea - Radio Romania International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/news-and-current-affairs\/sport\/athlete-of-the-week-tennis-player-sorana-cirstea-2-id980861.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Athlete of the Week \u2013 Tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea - Radio Romania International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Romanian tennis player Sorana C\u00eerstea has won the fourth WTA singles title of her career, securing victory last week at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transylvania. &nbsp; The tournament was Romania&#8217;s first major tennis event of the year. 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