Sorana Cirstea’s star is most definitely on the rise. Safely through to the third round of this year’s edition of the French Open, the 19-year-old Romanian is full of ambition, no doubt as a result of her great passion for the sport of tennis.
It is fascinating the way some stars are born. Aged just 4, Sorana happened to be watching a Steffi Graf - Monica Seles match on TV. “Right then and there I fell in love with the game. I was gazing at those two players and I only wanted one thing, to do what they were doing. My parents thought tennis was a good idea with all the energy that I had. I didn’t waste anytime getting serious in the sport. I already had a coach by the time I was five years old,” recalls Sorana, who is now No41 in the world.
At age 14, Sorana secured her first contract with Adidas and began her career on the ITF circuit. It was full speed from there. Two years later she had three singles and four doubles wins under her belt. Then, in 2007 at Hertogenbosch, Sorana became the first Romanian to reach the final of a WTA event since Ruxandra Dragomir Ilie in 2000.
Learning to bide her time
Cirstea moved into the big league last season, qualifying for the second round in three of the four Grand Slams. Shooting up in the world rankings, Sorana had leapt to No36 by October. But the hardest was still to come.
“For a year now I haven’t been performing as well as I expected. I have lots of ambition and I’ve had to learn to be patient. That’s really the area I’ve had to work on. Now I’m just happy to be moving forward and see my hard work pay off. The wins will come, I’m just taking it one match at a time,” she says.
Sorana breezed past France’s Alizée Cornet on Thursday and will be up against close friend world No10 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark on Saturday. (See featured article here).
“Caroline is my best friend, we do everything together. It’s hard to forget that when you step on the court. Sometimes I have trouble leaving my emotions out of my game.”
Sorana is part of the Adidas Player Development Program, working with top trainers, and it was via this route that she was able to meet her idol Steffi Graf last month in Las Vegas. “Even before I knew I was going to turn pro I wanted to be like her. That was my dream,” she remembers, smiling.
Sorana is the figurehead of a whole new generation of women’s tennis in Romania. “I think when my Fed Cup teammates and I got into the top 100, we were able to set an example for lots of girls in the juniors. I think that gave them hope.”
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