“I'd like to be remembered as a very kind player who was nice to everyone”

• Sorana Cîrstea has qualified for the 3rd round at Roland Garros and on Friday, May 29, after 14:00, she will meet Solana Sierra (21 years old, 68 WTA). The match will be watchable liveTEXT on GSP.ro and live on Eurosport 2 and HBO Max.

Sorana Cîrstea announced that 2026 will be her last year in the WTA circuit and since then her game has been at a very high level. The Romanian has been extremely consistent this season and, taking advantage of an impeccable physical condition and the experience accumulated throughout her career, she managed to break into the WTA top 20.

“I'm really living the dream and honestly, I don't know what's changed. From my point of view, I'm still doing the same things. I'm just as disciplined. I have just as much passion for this sport, maybe even more, because it's my senior year”, declared Cîrstea, in an interview for rolandgarros.com.

Sorana Cîrstea: “I try to enjoy myself a little more, but I'm very competitive and I've been like that all my life”

“I don't know how many people know this, but I love tennis immensely. Maybe the only difference is that I enjoy it more and I don't put as much pressure on the results as I used to. I think that would be the only difference. I never thought I would play until this age – I was planning to retire around 30,” added the 36-year-old tennis player, who explained that after the COVID pandemic she took it year by year, each time choosing to continue to play plays.

Sorana revealed that she entered 2026 with many goals, oriented rather on her game, on development, on mentality, not on results.

“I don't go on the court just to have fun. Yes, I try to smile, I try to enjoy myself a little bit more, but at the end of the day, I'm very competitive and I've been all my life. I think now I've found that balance between being very ambitious and still having goals to improve, but also trying to put emotions aside and enjoy myself more,” she said, revealing her secret this season.

This year, Cîrstea has been asked countless times if she is convinced that this is the last season in the WTA circuit and if she is considering changing her mind. The world number 18 stated that she does not mind these questions, because she sees them as a compliment. “It never hurts to have people's support and hear so many nice things“.

Sorana Cîrstea: “I think that, deep down, I always believed in myself”

In 2026, Sorana enjoys the constancy she shows and hopes to stay healthy.

“My dream has always been to finish while I'm still playing well, while I'm still at the top. I wanted to walk out the front door of tennis with a big smile on my face. I didn't want to retire just because my ranking dropped, I got injured or things weren't going my way,” said the 36-year-old.

Asked what legacy she wants to leave behind after retirement, Cîrstea first mentioned things not related to tennis:

“I would like to be remembered as a very kind player who was nice to everyone in the locker room and that I was a hard worker.”

At the end of the interview for Roland Garros, Sorana Cîrstea was asked if she would have believed at the beginning of the year that she would win a title on home soil, that she would beat a world leader for the first time and that she would enter the top 20:

“I think deep down, I always believed in myself. Sometimes I believed too much and put too much pressure on my shoulders, because every tournament I entered I wanted to win. So if someone had told me that at the beginning of the year, I would have been like, 'OK, finally!'”