Athlete of the Week – Tennis player Sorana Cîrstea
Sorana Cîrstea clinched her fourth WTA title in Cluj
Florin Orban, 10.02.2026, 13:45
Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea 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.
The tournament was Romania’s first major tennis event of the year. Part of the WTA 250 series, the women’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 Cîrstea, which is why we have designated her Athlete of the Week on RRI.
Entering the Transylvania Open as the number 3 seed, Cîrstea started her run with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Uzbekistan’s Kamilla Rachimova. She followed this with a dominant 6-1, 6-0 win against Slovenia’s Tamara Zidanšek.
Her quarter-final match against Austria’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.
The final pitched Cîrstea against the top seed, Britain’s Emma Răducanu, a player with Romanian heritage and a former US Open champion, who was coming off a hard-fought semi-final. Cîrstea triumphed emphatically, 6-0, 6-2, to become the first Romanian player to win the Cluj tournament.
Sorana Cîrstea was born in Târgoviște, southern Romania, on 7 April 1990. She turned pro in 2006, finishing that year ranked 348th 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).
Her career-high singles ranking is world number 21, achieved in August 2013. As a result of Saturday’s victory, she has climbed to 31st in WTA rankings, reclaiming her status as the highest-ranked Romanian tennis player. According to the WTA’s official website, her career prize money now exceeds 10 million US dollars. (VP)
