Tennis has this year brought a tremendous amount of
satisfaction to Romanian tennis lovers. For instance, Simona Halep won the
Roland Garros tournament, which was the first Grand Slam exploit of her career,
and will end this year as the world’s number one tennis player. As of late,
however, Romanian men’s tennis provided the most satisfactory surprise. Last
week, Marius Copil was only a whisker away from achieving the greatest men’s
singles performance in Romanian tennis in the last decade. However, Copil
sustained a defeat to Roger Federer, in the final of the ATP 500 tournament in
Basel, Switzerland. This week, Horia Tecau was the top performer. Jointly with
his Dutch teammate Jean Julien Rojer, Tecau reached as far as the ATP Masters
1000 tournament doubles finals, an event with 4,872,105 Euros up for grabs.
Tecău and Rojer sustained defeat by the Spanish-American pair made of Marcel
Granollers and Rajeev Ram, 6-4, 6-4. Tecau and Rojer will be awarded 141,820
Euros as well as 600 ATP points in the doubles rankings. For this reason, Radio
Romania International has designated Horia Tecau the Athlete of the Week.
Horia Tecău was born in Brasov on January 19, 1985. He has
been playing tennis since he was 7. In 2002, Tecau was a juniors’ men’s doubles
champion in Wimbledon, jointly with Florin Mergea. Horia Tecau turned pro in
2003. Since July 2008, Tecau has been placed among the world’s top 100 tennis
players in the doubles rankings, and among the world’s top 50, since 2009. Horia
Tecau then had a constant upward trend in the world’s doubles rankings,
reaching as far as the 2nd-place, a position he held in November
2015, when he won the Champions Tournament in London, jointly with his Dutch
teammate, Jean-Julien Rojer. Then in Paris, Tecau played the 54th
doubles finals of his career and the third finals in 2018, having won titles in
Dubai and Winston Salem. At present, Horia Tecau is 31st-placed
according to ATP rankings.
(Translated by E. Nasta)