As a 19-year-old rising ability, Cirstea progressed to her most memorable Huge homerun quarterfinal at 2009 Roland Garros. The 33-year-old finished in second place on Sunday at the US Open, her 53rd major appearance since her initial breakthrough run.
Having taken out world No. Cirstea followed up her win over No. 4 Elena Rybakina in a three-set match two days earlier with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over No. 15 seed Belinda Bencic. Following 84 minutes on the court,, she improved to 3-1 lifetime against the Swiss.
“I think I started really strong, and I sent quite a good message right from the beginning,” Cirstea told press. “I have played quite solid beginning to end. I think a few chances escaped my hand in the second, but I was able to refocus straightaway.
“I think I have been playing quite well for a while. I felt a lot of times I came out a bit short, like the results would not match the work I have put in.”
Cirstea hustled out to the initial five games and never completely permitted the previous semifinalist to find an initial once more into the challenge after her underlying twofold break benefits were diminished in each set. The 30th seed was the unrivaled hitter all around, winning 69% of her second-serve return focuses and contributing 17 less natural blunders than her rival. However she couldn’t serve out the experience, Cirstea returned with her 6th break to end it.
Cirstea had lost her three previous attempts to win a round-of-16 match at a major—the 2022 Australian Open, the 2021 French Open, and the 2017 Australian Open—before this week. In spite of her rare outings to second weeks, the previous world No. 21 claims a .500 record or better at every one of the four Huge homerun occasions. She had recently been to the third cycle multiple times at Flushing Knolls, generally as of late in 2020.
This year, the Romanian defeated Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka to reach the semifinals of the WTA 1000 for the first time in nearly a decade. After winning her initial matches, Cirstea lost to Top 20 opponents at three North American summer hard-court stops prior to the New York major. She’ll have a chance at avenging one of those misfortunes when she takes on Karolina Muchova in the last eight here.
The Roland Garros champion won by scores of 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 against Wang Winyu to complete a career run of Grand Slam quarterfinals. Muchova, who beat Cirstea in the second round of Montreal on August 9, has now won nine of her beyond 10 matches following a next in line finish to Coco Gauff in Cincinnati.
