Sorana Cîrstea was facing the “match of life” today. Not by the value of the opponent, but as a stake: a win would have taken her to the best position of her career: 15 WTA. In the semi-final of the Dubai tournament, the Romanian bowed out to Italy's Jasmine Paolini, 2-6, 6-7 (6) and will move up one place in the ranking on 21st, equaling her performance achieved several years ago.
Sorana Cîrstea will climb to the 21st place in the world from Monday. Photo Getty images
Our player easily lost the first set, and in the second she gave her opponent the opportunity to distance herself to 4-2. She changed her style, managed to recover the handicap and looked capable of repeating the performance of the previous match, against Marketa Vondrousova, when she found herself at 2-6, 1-5 and defeated the Czech. The scenario was not repeated, although Sorana Cîrstea saved a match point at 5-4 and then led 6-5. An interminable game on his own service followed.
The Romanian missed 5 set points, and the Italian equalized the situation on the fifth opportunity. The tie-break was equally contested, with Sorana wasting another set point at 6-5 but then losing two and it's Jasmine Paolini who goes into the final in Dubai. Bonus: a jump to 16th in the world for the opponent.
He added $158,944 to his account
Sorana Cîrstea is at the 3rd defeat in 3 games against the athlete from Cizma. In the previous meetings, Paolini won in 2021, in the quarters at Portoroz, with 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, and last year in the first round at Roland Garros, with 7-5, 2-6, 6-2 .
The Romanian won with a check for 158,944 dollars and 390 WTA points. In the final, Jasmine Paolini will face the winner between the Polish Iga Swiatek and the Russian Ana Kalinskaia, a match that will be played this evening.
