Athlete of the Week: Tennis Player Simona Halep
Romanian tennis player Simona Halep last Saturday won the single contest of the WTA tennis tournament in Nuremberg, Germany, with 235 thousand dollars in prize money.
Florin Orban, 18.06.2013, 18:08
Simona Halep defeated Andrea Petkovic from Germany in the finals 6-3, 6-3 in a game that lasted one hour and 24 minutes. In the early stages of the competition, Simona Halep outperformed Grace Min from the United States, then she defeated Spanish Estrella Cabeza Candela, Galina Voskoboeva of Kazahstan and Lucie Safarova from the Czech Republic. After all those matches the Romanian player managed to secure her first international circuit trophy although she’s so far been present in the finals of international competitions three times, twice in Fes, in 2010 and 2011 and once in Brussels in 2012. The result she obtained in Nuremberg has pushed Simona 13 positions up in the WTA standings where she is currently ranking 45th. This achievement prompted our radio station to designate her ‘Athlete of the Week’.
Born in Constanta on the Romanian Black Sea coast on September the 27th 1991 Simona Halep is the eighth Romanian female tennis player to clinch at least one WTA title, after Virginia Ruzici, Irina Sparlea, Ruxandra Dragomir, Alexandra Dulgheru, Sorana Carstea, Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu, the latter four still active players. She gaine first prize in the under-21 Roland Garros tournament, which she won against another Romanian, Elena Bogdan. This year, Simona made it to the semis of the WTA tournament in Rome and reached her best position, 37th, in the world standings on May the 28th 2012.
Worth noting is that other Romanian players put on excellent shows in the Nuremberg tennis tournament. Raluca Olaru paired with Russian Valeria Solovieva to win the doubles 2-7, 7-6, 11-9 against the German-Czech pair made up of Anna-Lena Gronfeld and Kveta Peschke.
