Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea, number 78 in WTA’s ranking of best women's tennis players in the world, has qualified for the fourth round of the 2017 Australian Open.

Cirstea played the third round match against American Alison Riske, whom she beat 6-2, 7-6 (2) in one hour and a half on Friday morning. This is the Romanian’s best performance at the tennis tournament in Melbourne. In the previous round, the Romanian beat Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro, the tournament's 10th seed, 7-6, 6-3.

In the next round, Soran Cirstea will play against the winner of the match between Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova and Spain's Garbine Muguruza.

Cirstea previously qualified for the Australian Open third round in 2012 and 2013. Her best performance at a Grand Slam tournament is the 2009 qualification into the Roland Garros quarterfinals.

Romania’s tennis star Simona Halep stopped in the first round of the Melbourne tournament, where he was defeated 6-3, 6-1 by American Shelby Rogers. It was the second straight first-round loss at this tournament for Halep, as she also was also eliminated at the same stage last year, by Chinese Zhang Shuai.

Another Romanian tennis player, Patricia Tig, was also eliminated from the first round of the Australian Open, while Irina-Camelia Begu made it to the second round, where she was defeated by Czech Kristyna Pliskova.

The Australian Open takes place in Melbourne, Australia, between January 16 and January 29, being the first Grand Slam of the year. The tournament has total money prizes of over USD 16.5 million.

Sorana Cirstea has secured 240 WTA points and a check for AUD 220,000 (EUR 155,000) for reaching the tournament's fourth round.

The 26-year old player from Targoviste first made it into the WTA top 40 in 2008, when she was only 18. In August 2013, she reached her career high - no. 21 WTA. Then came the decline, due to an injury, and she had to start over, after falling out of the Top 200 in 2015. In 2016, she returned to the Top 100.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Sorana Cirstea on Facebook)