Tennis

Florin Orban, 05.02.2020, 12:04

The first Grand Slam tennis
tournament of the year, the Australian Open, came to an end on Sunday. The
winner of the women’s final was the American player Sofia Kenin, who lifted her
first ever Grand Slam trophy, while the men’s title went to Serbia’s Novak
Djokovic, who won it for the eighth time. Romania’s Simona Halep made it far as
the semifinals, which she reached for the second time in her career at this
tournament. She lost this match to Spain’s Garbine Muguruza. Simona Halep won
over 1 million Australian dollars and 780 WTA points, which helped her go up to
number 2 in the world ranking.

In other news from tennis, the Fed
Cup, the premier international competition in women’s tennis, is back in the
news. On Friday and Saturday, Romania are facing Russia in the World Group in
Cluj, western Romania. The winner will qualify for the final tournament of the
Fed Cup, which will be hosted by Budapest between the 14th and the
19th of April. The Romanian team is without Simona Halep, Irina Begu
and Monica Niculescu, who decided not to play so as to concentrate their
efforts on the WTA tournaments with a view to qualifying for the Olympic Games
in Tokyo this summer. Under the circumstances, Romania’s non-playing captain Florin
Segarceanu has capped the following players for the match against Russia: Ana
Bogdan, no. 90 in the world, Irina Bara, no. 160, Gabriela Ruse, no. 166,
Jaqueline Cristian, no. 197, and Raluca Olaru, no. 47 in the world doubles
rankings. Irina Bara, Gabriela Ruse and Jaqueline Cristian are part of
Romania’s Fed Cup team for the first time.

Let us also note that Romania never
faced Russia in a Fed Cup match, but did play against the former USSR, first in
1978 in Melbourne, in the quarterfinals of the World Group, and then in 1986 in
Prague, in the second round of the World Group. Romania lost both of these
matches.