Such a nice feeling to win a title again. This feeling becomes even more intense if the tournament victory is the consequence of a good, consistent game, with the efficiency found to a significant extent.
Then you feel that you fall in love with this sport as much as you did in the beginning. Not that you didn’t love it in the meantime. But tennis also means passion and fighting spirit, without these it becomes just a routine.
Now I feel the same as when I was 18 years old, during my first year on the tour or as in 2019, which was my best year in the career. In those years I felt that I was on the right track and that all my hopes were allowed.
But tennis, this tough sport, wants much more from you than positive feelings to reward your efforts. So, I am aware that the path till I regain the consistency at my best level, over several matches – and, consequently, the points for the ranking – is a long one.
For example, I feel that I still have to progress physical, in order to get back to the athletic form and stamina that helped me in the long, hard matches.
I have already taken the first steps, but only after I became objective again and acted harshly on myself.
I made the decision to leave Antalya and come home to prepare physically and on the court for two weeks with the team that is by my side all the time: coach Roxana Mohănescu, physical trainer Mihai Anghel and the physiotherapists from Osteo Performance.
Every day I did either two physical trainings and one tennis practice, or vice versa, followed by recovery in the evening, because the two injuries of the last year taught me to take better care of my body, without the slightest discount from the proper diet (no sugar, alcohol, but lots of protein, fruits and vegetables). I added swimming as a complementary sport, once a week – I promised the swimming instructor, Vali, and my physical trainer, Mihai, that I would finally learn to swim with my head in water – and a yoga session during the free day.
I also decided to practice in Spain to practice a few days before the start of the tournament with my doubles partner, the German Joelle Lilly Sophie Steur – and her coach Jan Wouter Roep [in the photo gallery below] – with whom I eventually became champion in the sunny Spain, because the outdoor clay game is different from the indoor one.
And Costa Jávea [photo gallery, above] is less hectic than our capital, meaning a better environment for mental balance and focus.
At home, in the few free moments I relaxed by socializing with my parents, close friends and read as much as I could, because relaxing in the free time also plays an extremely important role.
The reward came in the form of the 34th doubles title, won at W15 Sabadell (the statistics of those, compiled by a friend, at the end of the article). So I will continue on this path. Two UTR tournaments are coming up, because ITF tournaments don’t help the professional player’s bank account.
On that note, before the doubles final I was faced with another difficult decision (because I had to buy the plane ticket): whether or not to stay at the next W35 tournament in Spain which was only 10 minutes away. After doing all the possible and impossible calculations for about an hour, I came to the conclusion that from a financial point of view I cannot stay. I got angry, but I used this feeling to my advantage in the match, during which I channeled my revolt in the right direction.
Anyway, I thank my parents, my good friends and the manager of the club where I am signed – Călin Moga, Sportsin Arad – for the financial help that makes me stay on this journey.
It was good that the tournament paid the prize right away and that way I had money to return home, otherwise I would have stayed there and changed my citizenship as well.
The good part of this is that I did not gave another topic in Romanian tennis to comment on.
The less good part is that I have not been able to find out if Spanish men, apart from being good looking, are more generous than ours.
I say this because before leaving on this trip, a guy that I know invited me to go with him to a party where an entrance ticket had to be bought. Attached to this proposal, he also sent me the link to the website where I could buy my ticket, so that everything was clear related to his “invitation”.
It was not in my plan to go there anyway, because I wanted to stick to my schedule, but at least I had some fun.
The season is still early, an action-packed summer is lying ahead.
P.S. If you want me to cover other topics in my articles, make videos from the Tour or places I visit or any other proposal you have for my blog, please write it down in the comments (directly on the site, on Facebook or Instagram)
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Last week, Oana won her 43th career title on the ITF Pro Tour, after 76 finals.
She became 9 times champion in Singles, after 21 finals [all on clay] and 34 times in Doubles, after 55 finals [29-19 on clay, 5-2 on hard].
The title won in Sabadell is the 28th in the W15 [former 10k] category in Doubles [the other 6 in the ITF W35 (former 25k) category], the first one at ITF 10k Sibiu 2014 (/ Camelia Hristea), the next to last at W15 Valencia (/ Inês Murta).
This is the first doubles title won in 2024, the others in: în 2023 – 2, 2022 – 3, 2021 – 3, 2020 – 1, 2019 – 4, 2018 – 4, 2017 – 3, 2016 – 6, 2015 – 4, 2014 – 3.
