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| Simona Halep with her Bucharest trophy |
Country: Bucharest, Romania
Surface: Clay (Red)
Draw: 32 players
Tier: International level event
Ranking points: 280 WTA ranking points
Romania’s capital city played host to the WTA's ladies for the first time this year, and saw them all contesting fiercely to be the first ever to carve their name on the inaugural Bucharest Open trophy.
In the end, the Romanian crowd cheered their leading lady, Simona Halep, to victory.
“I really wanted to play this tournament and win it,” Halep said. “Today’s final was a very emotional one. The crowd was amazing and I want to thank everybody who played a part in the tournament.”
Halep has had a stellar year so far, with titles in Doha and now in Bucharest. Building on her excellent performances last year, she has reached the finals at Madrid and Roland Garros, had semi-final appearances at Indian Wells and Wimbledon, and a quarter-final showing at the Australian Open this year. Her title tally now stands on 8, after a phenomenal last half in 2013 when she won 6 titles between June and November.
Having faced a stern test against talented compatriot, Monica Niculescu, in the semi-finals. After dropping the second set in their contest, Simona kicked into another gear and claimed the third set 6-1 to reach her 4th final of the year. She faced Roberta Vinci, who has a cracking 9-1 record in WTA finals. In the final, she continued her fine run of form on clay this year, claiming a 6-1, 6-3 victory in 1 hour and 8 mins.
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| The Romanian fans were delighted at Simona's victory in the Capital |
“Simona is an incredible tennis player and she has a phenomenal game. I gave it my best and I actually managed to get to 2-0 in the second set but she was too strong. However, it was nice to receive the support of the crowd, and I am happy to have played my first singles final of the year here.” said a gracious Roberta Vinci, after the match.
Halep is now only 11 points behind the Road to Singapore leader Maria Sharapova, the race to the WTA Year End Championships. She is also a mere 200 points behind World #2, Li Na in the rankings and I’ll bet she has her eye firmly on that prized #1 spot. A goal that is not entirely out of the realm of possibility for her, perhaps still this year.
Watch Simona over the next few months to see if she can steal that elusive top spot from Serena Williams in 2014.
You can follow your favourites in this week’s tournaments in
Collector Swedish Open in Bastad, Sweden
and
TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Cup in Turkey
at
To see the standings on the Road to Singapore, visit
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