Athlete of the week
Florin Orban, 01.02.2022, 13:39
Attention-grabbing in terms of tennis
competitions in the past two weeks has been the year’s first Grand Slam tournament,
the Australian Open. However, among
the other smaller events as part of the ITF circuit, there was the tournament held
in Andrézieux-Bouthéon, France. It was a tournament with a total sum of 60,000 USD
in prize money. Romanian tennis player Ana Bogdan was the winner. Reason enough
for Radio Romania International to designate Ana Bogdan the Athlete of the week.
Top-seeded in the Andrézieux-Bouthéon
tournament were French tennis players Clara Burel and Océane Dodin. Swiss tennis player Ylena In‑Albon eliminated Burel from the very
first round. As for Dodin, she sustained a quarterfinal defeat by 6th-seeded
Anna Blinkova of Russia. Blinkova reached as far as the final, where she went against
third-seeded player, Ana Bogdan. The Romanian’s trail ahead of the semifinal was
fairly accessible, since Bogdan went against significantly lower-ranked
opponents according to the world standings. However, it took Ana Bogdan three
sets to secure her semifinal win against WTA 199th-ranked opponent, Jessica
Ponchet of France. The Romanian had no problem defeating Blinkova in the final,
7-5, 6-3, after one hour and 46 minutes of play. The win in France has been Ana
Bogdan’s second most important feat of her career so far. We recall that in
2019 Bogdan won the ITF Dubai tournament, an event with 100,000 USD in prize
money.
Ana
Bogdan was born in Sinaia, on November 25, 1992. She took up tennis when she
was 4. Ana played in her first ITF circuit tournaments in 2007. However, it was
not until 2014 that Ana Bogdan advanced to a WTA tournament. In Bad Gastein, Ana
Bogdan reached as far as the second round. Over 2016 and 2018 she reached as far
as the semi-finals of several WTA tournaments, a couple of times. Ana Bogdan
was best-placed according to the WTA rankings in June 2018, when she was 59th-ranked.
The as-it-stands WTA table saw Ana Bogdan being 101st-placed.
The Romanian climbed up 15 notches, after her win in Andrézieux-Bouthéon.
(EN)
