Romania's Cirstea gets off to flying start at US Open
Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea got off to a flying start at this year's edition of the US Open tournament, the last Grand Slam of the year, as she defeated Kayla Day 6-2 6-3 on Monday at the Flushing Meadows arenas in New York, told Agerpres.
It took N. 30 Cirstea, 33, world number 30, an hour and 15 minutes to win her first meet with American Day, 23, world number 91.
Cirstea finished with six aces and four double faults, had more direct winning balls (26-9), but also more unforced errors (28-13).
For her performance at the tournament so far, Cirstea won USD123,000 dollars and 70 WTA singles points, and in the second round she will face Russian Anna Kalinskaya.
This will be the third meet of Cirstea and Kalinskaya, 24, world number 87, with their head-to-head count breaking even. Kalinskaya won in 2020 in the second round in New York (where the tournament was moved from Cincinnati due to the pandemic), 7-5 6-4. Cirstea got her revenge in March 2022, in the third round at Indian Wells, 5-7 6-1 6-0.
In 2022, Cirstea failed to pass the second round in New York.
There are four Romanians on the women's singles main draw at Flushing Meadows: Irina Begu (will play in the first round German Tamara Korpatsch), Ana Bogdan (will meet American Sofia Kenin), Patricia Tig (will play Canadian Rebecca Marino ) and qualifier Gabriela Ruse (will meet the Czech player Karolina Pliskova).