Romanian tennis player Simona Halep has officially moved one place up in the WTA ranking, making it to the podium, on the third position, up from the fourth before playing the Roland Garros final against Maria Sharapova.

The two better ranking tennis players in the world are America’s Serena Williams, ranking first, and Chinese Na Li.

The third place WTA is the best ever ranking for a Romanian female tennis player. With 6,435 points, Halep outpaced Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska, who is at number 4. Halep ranks better than Maria Sharapova, who is at number 5 WTA, and who won the Roland Garros tournament against the Romanian last weekend.

Other Romanians in the WTA ranking are Sorana Cirstea, who is down two places, on the 28th, and Monica Niculescu, up ten places, to 66th. Irina Camelia – Begu is at number 81st – up 8 positions, Alexandra Cadantu, at 85 – down from 81st, and Alexandra Dulgheru, ranking 10th, up from 133.

Halep was last year named most improved player by the WTA after a rapid rise through the rankings.

Looking for a breakthrough, Halep went into Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome as a number 64 ranked qualifier in May last year.

She beat four of the game’s biggest names - Svetlana Kuznetsova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Roberta Vinci and Jelena Jankovic - before finally running out of gas against Serena Williams in the semifinals, shooting up to number 44.

What happened next was a breakthrough six months – including that run in Rome, Halep went 43-8 in her last 14 WTA main draws of the year, winning her first six WTA titles at Nürnberg, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Budapest, New Haven, Moscow and Sofia, and finishing No.11 on the November 4 year-end rankings.

She went into top 10 WTA in the beginning of 2014.

editor@romania-insider.com