The Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea performs remarkably at the WTA 1000 Miami Open after defeating Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus) to qualify for the semi-finals. Sorana Cirstea won the quarter-final match by 2-0 (6:4, 6:4) in less than an hour and a half.
The Romanian delivered a stunning performance while taking advantage of some untimely double faults to become only the third person to beat Aryna Sabalenka this year. The Belarusian player had six double faults, three of them on breakpoints, and made 21 unforced errors to just nine for the Romanian.
Sorana Cirstea took advantage, breaking the serve of her opponent already in the first game of the match. She took a lead of 2:0 after taking her next game on 15. Aryna Sabalenka succeeded to return into the set in the 8th game after breaking her opponent, but the Romanian tennis player immediately returned the break, which proved to be enough for the set, and closed it by 6:4.
In the second set, Sorana Cirstea took an early break to lead by 2:0. However, Aryna Sabalenka again succeeded to equalize to 2:2 and showed some improvement in her play. Sorana Cirstea succeeded to break the serve of the Belarusian player in the 7th game to take a lead of 4:3 and then reconfirmed it by winning her serve game to 5:3. Thus, Sorana Cirstea used the advantage she had and won the set by 6:4 and the match by 2-0.
“I am a bit speechless”, said Sorana Cirstea after the match. “I came out knowing that it was going to be a really tough match. Aryna hits so hard, so I knew I had to hold my ground and I am very, very happy with my performance today and it’s a bit unexpected to be honest”, added the Romanian tennis player.
In the semi-finals, Sorana Cirstea will face the inner between Ekaterina Alexandrova (Russia) and Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic).
Sorana Cirstea remained the only unseeded player in the tournament and she had not lost a set already.
