Sorana Cîrstea, 36 years old, currently ranked 18th in the WTA rankings, will begin her adventure at Roland Garros, the second Grand Slam tournament of the year, on Sunday evening, facing a local favorite, Ksenia Efremova, a young player with Russian origins, aged only 17.
The junior champion of this year’s Australian Open, Efremova is a Russian player who chose to represent France, and as a consequence of this fact, she revealed something rather disturbing.
Prior to her first-round match with Sorana, Ksenia shared that she couldn't find practice partners for match simulations, being avoided because she's just a wild-card beneficiary and because she's from Russia.
"Sometimes it's difficult to find training partners. When you're a wild-card, the girls don't want to play for points, they don't want to play practice sets. It has already happened to me. I don't want to say who, but some girls have refused to practice with me because I was a wild-card beneficiary."
Later, there was even a situation where a girl came and said: "Okay, it's fine." And then I beat her 6-2. It went well," Efremova said, quoted by tennisuptodate.com.
The match between Cîrstea and Efremova, ranked 625th in the WTA rankings, scheduled to start sometime after 7:30 p.m., will not be the only one with a Romanian player starting today in Paris. Gabi Ruse will play after 5:30 p.m. also in the first round at Roland Garros, against Magdalena Frech from Poland.
The winner of the match between Sorana Cîrstea and Ksenia Efremova will face Petra Martic, the recent champion in Rabat, or Eva Lys in the second round.
D.A.