The world’s best tennis players are in Melbourne for the first Grand Slam event of the year – the Australian Open. The action got underway today (January 14 ) and Romania’s Sorana Cirstea (in picture) has already secured a comfortable first round victory.

The Romanian took the match in straight sets, winning 6 – 4, 6 – 2 and playing with far more consistency than her opponent from the US, Coco Vandeweghe. Sorana Cirstea will face Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic in the second round of the Australian Open.

Sorana Cirstea is ranked 27th for the competition. She is currently at her highest position ever in the world rankings after finishing 2012 with her first top 30 placing.

There are plenty more Romanians in the Women’s Singles and Irina Camelia- Begu also won her first round match. She beat Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands in two sets. The first set went to 6 – 4 and lasted over an hour, but the Dutch girl’s resistance crumbled in the second and the Romanian took the set 6 – 2 in just half an hour. Irina Camelia-Begu will have a tough match in the second round when she plays number four seed Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland.

Also in action for Romania was Alexandra Cadantu, who played British number one Heather Watson. After getting the better of the Brit in the first set, the Romanian lost her way in the latter part of the match, finally losing by two sets to one.

More Romanians are soon to be in action in the first round, but the draw has been pretty tough. Monica Niculescu faces last year’s winner and number one seed Victoria Azarenka of Bulgaria. Also up against a former champion is Romania’s Edina Gallovits-Halls, who plays Serena Williams in her first round match. Simona Halep also has a tricky looking encounter coming up; she plays Sloane Stephens of the US, who is ranked 29.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com

photo source: australianopen.com