Monica Niculescu

Romanians Monica Niculescu, Patricia Tig and Simona Halep won doubles matches at the Gippsland Trophy (WTA 500) tournament in Melbourne on Tuesday, with total prizes of 565,530 dollars. The pair Monica Niculescu / Patricia Tig won 6-3, 6-3 versus 4th seeds Andreja Klepac (Slovenia) / Elise Mertens (Belgium), in just 66 minutes.

In her opening WTA match of 2021, Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, world number two, won her first match of the season at the Gippsland Trophy on Monday 6-4 6-4 against Russian Anastasia Potapova - in the round of 32 of the 565,530-USD tournament in Melbourne, Australia.

The pair made up of Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu and Japanese tennis player Misaki Doi qualified on Monday for the quarterfinals of the women's doubles at the WTA tournament in Shenzen (China) - Shenzhen Open, with total prizes worth 775,000 US dollars, after defeating the duo made up of Ekaterina Alexandrova (Russia) / Oksana Kalashnikova (Georgia), with a score of 6-2, 6-2.

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep has climbed one spot advancing to the third position in the world ranking of professional tennis players (Women's Tennis Association - WTA), released on Monday.

The pair made up of Romanian player Monica Niculescu and Russian Ana Blinkova qualified on Thursday for the doubles semifinals of the Open de Limoges WTA 125 K tournament (France), with total prizes of 125,000 dollars, by defeating Sofia Sapatava (Georgia) and Emily Webley-Smith (United Kingdom), 6-2, 6-1. It took the main seeds only 46 minutes to win.

Romanian tennis player Ana Bogdan qualified on Wednesday for the round of 16 at the WTA tournament - Open BLS De Limoges in Limoges (France), with prizes worth 115,000 US dollars, after defeating Dutch Arantxa Rus, with a score of 7-6, 6-2. The Romanian national (aged 27, WTA's 105th) managed to win the event after one hour and 32 minutes.

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, world number six, on Sunday advanced to the women's singles second round of the 8,285,274-USD China Open WTA tournament in Beijing, after defeating Sweden's Rebecca Peterson 6-1 6-1. Halep, 28, who last week withdrew from the 2019 Wuhan Open tournament with back pain, prevailed over 24-year-old Scandinavian, world number 53, in an hour and 12 minutes.

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, world number four, will play a qualifier in the first round of the US Open tournament, the last Grand Slam of the year, according to the draw in New York on Thursday. Halep, who won the Wimbledon title this summer, lost in the first round at last year's tournament in Flushing Meadows.

Romanian-Russian tennis duo Monica Niculescu/Margarita Gasparyan qualified on Monday for the women's doubles quarterfinals of the Bronx Open (WTA) tournament in New York, with prizes worth 250,000 US dollars, after defeating the pair made up of Taiwanese Su-Wei Hsieh /Yu-Chieh Hsieh, with a score of 6-1, 7-5. The pair managed to win in only 64 minutes.

Simona Halep, Mihaela Buzarnescu, Irina Begu, Monica Niculescu and Raluca Olaru have been nominated by non-playing captain Florin Segarceanu for the Fed Cup tennis semi-finals in Rouen, France, April 20-21, the Romanian Tennis Federation reported on Monday.