*Note: The blog, after undergoing a small suspension due to the writing of my novella, "Homeless and Silent", which you can find on amazon here, is back. The novella very affordable, 99 cents without Kindle Unlimited and free with Kindle Unlimited. It's written in an unconventional style and uses stream-of-consciousness elements. Enjoy!
It seems like just yesterday Sorana Cirstea was on top of the tennis world. The tournament was WTA Toronto, one of the biggest tournaments on tour outside of the Grand Slams, an event in which almost all of the top players regularly enter. After Cirstea's breakout tournament win in Tashkent over Sabine Lisicki in 2008 and French Open quarterfinal run in 2009, Toronto provided Cirstea the perfect opportunity to bring her game back to the level it was at a few years back, if not soar higher. Toronto was the time when Sorana's middling career could take off once more.
The 2013 WTA Toronto was the tournament of Sorana Cirstea's life. Cirstea made the Final of the tournament, and while she lost to Serena Williams, it was an unbelievable run from a largely unheralded player. The players that Cirstea beat made the feat all the more impressive. Sorana beat Caroline Wozniacki, Jelena Jankovic, Petra Kvitova, and Li Na all in succesion. This included beating Jankovic and Li Na in straight sets. Considering that all of these players have, at least, made a major Final, it was almost inconceivable that Sorana Cirstea could pull this off. But, she did, and in August of that year, shortly after the Toronto run, she reached her career high ranking, number 21 in the world. The bad news for Sorana? It was all downhill from there.
Cirstea couldn't maintain the momentum she sustained in Toronto. She rounded out the 2013 season without making even the Quarterfinals of another event and went on a four-match losing streak to end the season, only winning one set in that span. In fact, Sorana only won three matches from the time she won her semifinal in Toronto until the end of the year. For a player with so much hope and promise, thoroughly deserved given the caliber of players she beat in Canada, this was very disappointing.
And it didn't get much better for Cirstea in 2014. She started off the year on a three-match losing streak (seven-match losing streak overall), meaning that she didn't even get a win (or even a set)until after the Australian Open. There were only two occasions in 2014 when Sorana could even put together two wins in a row (excluding Fed Cup), and the French Open was the last time all year that this occurred. WTA Montreal (the tournament switches between Toronto and Montreal every year) was a full-blown disaster for Cirstea as she lost in the First Round, and a ton of the points from her 2013 run fell off, meaning that her ranking went down the tubes. Cirstea ended 2014, like 2013 on a four-match losing streak.
2015 for Sorana has been poor, as well. She hasn't had a main-draw win in a WTA Tour-level event all season and has lost in qualifying for both the French Open and Wimbledon. Cirstea actually started this year on a six-match losing streak, which means she was on a ten-match overall losing streak including 2014. And while she finally won two matches in a row in her quarterfinal run in her previous tournament, Contrexeville, Cirstea desperately needs points. Sorana Cirstea is currently ranked number 161 in the world.
So, what does this all have to do with WTA Bucharest this week? Well, Bucharest is a Romanian tournament and Cirstea, being Romanian, received a wild card into the main draw, meaning that she didn't even have to remotely consider the possiblity of playing qualifying matches to get into her home-country tournament. Having the wild card gives Cirstea a nice platform to attempt to at least partially regain her 2013 Toronto form and get valuable points. At number 161 in the world, Cirstea is stuck playing qualifying matches at the majors, so a run in a tournament like Bucharest, which is a WTA-level event but not a high profile one, can allow Sorana to perhaps win a few matches and get her ranking closer to 100, which is around the place she needs to be to avoid slam qualies.
Her First Round opponent in Bucharest, Sesil Karatantcheva, is also very beatable. Sesil is currently on a three-match losing streak, and with the crowd thoroughly behind Sorana, oddsmakers only have Sorana as a slight underdog in the match. And while it isn't a cakewalk draw, Sorana can avoid the top two seeds until the Semifinals if she keeps winning. Perhaps Cirstea's home-country tournament could be yet another turning point in Sorana's career. It is important to note that, at 25, Cirstea has a lot of time to turn her career around, and a couple wins at a tournament like this could be exactly what she needs.
Sorana Cirstea has proven to the world before that she has what it takes to play with some of the best players in the world. It takes serious guts to come from a set down to a player of Sabine Lisicki's caliber and have the mental strength to take a third set tiebreak to win a WTA Title. It's also true that to make the Quarterfinals of a major, you have to have serious talent and mental fortitude. And tennis fans won't ever forget Cirstea's unbelievable run to the WTA Toronto Final.
WTA Bucharest could be the tournament that revitalizes the talents and mental strengths that once made Sorana such a formidable player. Playing in front of her home-country fans, the strain of having to potentially qualify gone from her mind, with a very winnable First Round match in front of her, it wouldn't be very surprising to see Sorana rise to the challenge once more.
It wouldn't be shocking to see a small WTA tournament in Bucharest, Romania revitalize Sorana Cirstea's career.
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