As I promised in the previous article, I will continue the story of the busy summer weeks on the tour. The last two felt like two months, due to the travel, but also the effort I put in on the court.
But, before anything else, my last result on the tour: in the week of June 2-8, I reached the semi-finals in a W50 tournament, played in Troisdorf.
Of course, the result, the points, the financial prize are the ones that stand out, but the way I got to this stage of the tournament and the difficult situations I overcame are the ones that make me continue and feel that all the work I put in is worth it.
On Sunday, before the tournament, I won a set against Mona Barthel (now WTA 197 at 34 – thanks to a continued high level of play, materialized by a W75 title last year – but formerly 23 WTA in 2013), in a match for my team, Luitspoldpark München, in the Bundesliga. After losing the first set, I managed to come back in the second set, from 3-5, and win it 7-6.
At W50 Troisdorf and in the German championship (two videos, at the end of the article) – Photo Credit 1: vitleo_sport
This set confirmed the good level of my game, the same as at W75 Saint Gaudens and helped me rebalance my confidence shaken at W75 Brescia by Caty McNally (212, but formerly 54 WTA / 2023), whom I took only one game.
After the team match, I stayed in Germany, but I went to Troisdorf – a city located between Cologne and Bonn – for the W50 tournament, which I was talking about at the beginning of the article.
Here I checked:
- two matches in the Qualifying Draw, won in two sets each against two young players;
- a comeback from 0-4 in the deciding set against Ekaterine Gorgodze, 257 WTA (formerly 108 / 2022, a W50 title this year) – in R16 – for the most important victory according to the rank of the defeated opponent, since the one against Jesika Maleckova (also 257 WTA), at W60 Braşov, June 2022 and the 6th most precious of my career in this regard;
- a quarter-final won in two days, which lasted 3h40′, after I saved two match points in the second set;
- at the end I played a total of 7 matches in 7 days
In the semifinals, exhausted, I lost to a young American player – who would win the tournament – a trainee of the well-known coach Alexander Waske – who also mentored Alex Coman – but whose other two players from his Academy present on the draw I had eliminated in the previous rounds.
After this last match, the German coach congratulated me on the good tournament, for the game, but also for the dedication with which I fought in each match, the desire and seriousness shown day after day, given that I was alone at the tournament (as usual, I would add).
He gave me also two precious pieces of advice related to the technical aspects of my game.
This discussion with the well-known coach confirmed once again the feeling I had when I returned to the circuit after the injuries: that I could still progress and show a good level of play, at the age of 29, which I turned in March.
The Troisdorf tournament brought me 22 WTA points – the 3rd most important career achievement in this regard (after the W25 Trieste final, September 2022 – 30 points and the W25 Tarvisio semi-final, July 2021 – 25 points), a progress of 70 places in the ranking – up to 481 WTA, the best place since May 29, 2023 so far. My career high is 380 WTA / July 26, 2021, but when we consider that in May 2024 I had dropped to 1168 WTA – after the two injuries close in time (the first one, the second one) – you understand that I have reasons to be proud. Let’s not forget the precious 1313 euros (net) in my bank account.
Going back to the week before this tournament, one of the reasons why these period felt longer was the traveling that I told you about in the previous article and that has continued since then.
I started the journey from Bucharest to the last match for the French team, held, as usual, on Sunday. That same day, I had a flight to Milan Bergamo, where I was participating in the W75 tournament in Brescia and on Monday I was playing the first round of the Qualifying Draw. Again, a tough day with two matches and a trip.
Everything went according to the plan, except for a funny little adventure that almost caused me to miss the train to Brescia. After landing, I took the bus to the station. I had plenty of time until the train, so I sat in line to buy my ticket in physical format. I usually buy it online and I almost had to pay for this misconduct: a lady ahead of me, lingered for about 20 minutes at the counter, so I went back to the online option. I wanted to head to the line where the train was leaving, but the main lines were under renovation so I had to find line 1 West. I asked a few people, I got lost, time was running out. In the end, I got a good indication and arrived two minutes before the departure of the train.
I played the first qualifying match, a long one, without the specific tennis warm-up and I won it, but I lost the second match as I told you above.
From Brescia, I decided to go to Munich, where I was going to practice for a day, and then leave with a teammate for Northern Germany. I took the train for a 7-hour journey, arrived at my destination, practiced, and from there I continued on.
In conclusion: five hotels changed in five days, luggage unpacked and repacked each time, 14 hours of travel in three days.
My journey through the circuit continues. So do the “Court Chronicles”.
