Athlete of the Week on RRI: Tennis player Florin Mergea

Florin Mergea is seeded 4th in the Australian Open doubles

România Internațional, 19.01.2016, 12:59

The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, is set to kick off in Melbourne. Prior to this competition several top-level tennis tournaments were held in Brisbane and Sydney in Australia, Hobart in Tasmania, or Auckland in New Zealand. The last such tournament was held in Sydney. In the womens singles, totaling some 688 thousand dollars in prize money, Romanian tennis player Simona Halep reached the semi-finals, where she was knocked out by Svetlana Kuznetsova. In the mens doubles, Florin Mergea of Romania and Rohan Bopanna of India made it to the doubles finals, where they lost however to the pair made up of Jamie Murray of the United Kingdom and Bruno Soares of Brazil, 6-3, 7-6.

For qualifying to the finals in Sydney, we have designated Florin Mergea Athlete of the Week on RRI.

Florin Mergea was born on January 26, 1985 in Craiova, into a family of physicians. As a young tennis player he paired up with Horia Tecau, and together they won several top-level tournaments, including the under-21 doubles final at Wimbledon. He turned pro in 2003. In the last three years, Florin Mergea had a great run, which one might find surprising considering he is no longer in his prime. In September 2012 he was ranked among the worlds top 100 players in doubles standings, while in July 2015, after his win in the Madrid tournament alongside Rohan Bopanna, he was in 7th place. At present he is ranked 11. At the Australian Open, Mergea and Bopanna are seeded 4th in the doubles competition, and will play Omar Jasika and Nich Kyrgios of Australia in the first round.

(Translated by V. Palcu)