Sorana Cirstea produced a commanding performance to capture the Transylvania Open, defeating top seed Emma Raducanu 6-0, 6-2. The 35-year-old, who has said she will retire at the end of 2026, did not drop a set en route to her fourth career WTA singles title and closed the final in 63 minutes on Center Court in Cluj-Napoca.

Cirstea dominated early, winning the first eight games and delivering a first-set bagel against the former US Open champion. She reached the trophy after a week that included a quarterfinal victory over defending champion Anastasia Potapova and a semifinal in which Ukrainian Daria Snigur was held to three games.

A former world No. 21, Cirstea has displayed remarkable consistency over 20 years on tour, reaching two WTA quarterfinals and finishing 16 seasons ranked inside the Top 100. Her final Australian Open earlier this year ended in an emotional exchange when she lashed out at former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka at the net over perceived gamesmanship, but she sought to put that behind her in the days that followed.

“I never thought I would play for such a long time,” Cirstea said back in January. “I’m very, very grateful to have had such a long career. Of course, a little bit disappointed about tonight. I thought I could have done things better, but only one player can win, and she managed to do that better at the end.”

Raducanu arrived in the final on the back of a career resurgence, having finished 2025 inside the Top 30 and reaching her first final since winning the 2021 US Open. Her run in Cluj-Napoca included overcoming a 0-5 deficit in the second round against Kaja Juvan and a three-set win over Oleksandra Oliynykova in the quarterfinals, but she was unable to find enough rhythm against the veteran in the title match. Raducanu did take a medical timeout in the final and briefly halted Cirstea’s streak with a break, yet Cirstea reasserted control to close out the victory.

For the first time since her surprise U.S. Open triumph in 2021, Emma Raducanu will contest a trophy match. The top seed at the WTA 250 Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca advanced to the final by defeating unseeded Oleksandra Oliynykova 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in Friday’s semifinal.

Raducanu had been 0-3 in tour-level semifinals since her run of 10 consecutive victories at Flushing Meadows in 2021, where she became the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam singles title in the Open Era. She broke that streak by outlasting world No. 91 Oliynykova in a match that lasted two hours and 49 minutes.

The Brit received medical attention on her shoulder late in the first set but still built a 7-5, 3-1 advantage. Oliynykova, who parlayed a headline-grabbing performance against 2025 champion Madison Keys at the Australian Open into her first-ever tour-level semifinal this week, responded strongly. The Ukrainian won five straight games, seven of eight, to take the second set and became the first player to break serve in the third set.

Raducanu recovered in the decider, winning 16 consecutive points from 2-1, 15-15, and ultimately closing out the match after surviving a tense seventh game in which she failed to convert two match points on the return and then served out the victory after saving a pair of break points. She came from a break down in the final set to complete the comeback.

Raducanu credited the crowd and expressed a strong connection to the setting, saying she really feels “at home” in Romania, the birthplace of her father. She singled out the match-long challenge posed by her opponent and praised the support that helped her through the encounter.

“I think all props to my opponent today. Oli, she played incredible and makes it so tricky to get any ball past her,” Raducanu said afterwards. “You think it’s past her and then the ball is on your baseline or your sideline, so it’s so difficult.

“I’m most proud of how I competed, how I came back in the third set, and how I managed the match, but I don’t know if I could’ve done it without everyone’s support today.”

© 2026 Horvath Tamas

Oleksandra Oliynykova reached her first WTA semifinal at the Transylvania Open with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 4 seed Wang Xinyu. The 25-year-old, wearing temporary bat tattoos on her face in keeping with the tournament theme, is two wins away from a first title at the Transylvania Open.

The Ukrainian refugee recorded her first WTA match win in Cluj-Napoca earlier this week and built on that momentum, saving 20 of 22 break points en route to the milestone. The match lasted two hours and one minute on Center Court.

“I’m so happy,” an overcome Oliynykova said in her on-court interview, draped in the Ukrainian flag. “For me now, it’s hard to describe what I feel. But for me, it’s so important to be here, to play for my country and to feel so much support. I’m really thankful to all the people here and I really hope to see you in the semifinals.

“I have so many emotions I forgot how to speak!” she added with a laugh.

Oliynykova has emerged as one of the breakout stories of the 2026 season, having pushed defending champion Madison Keys to a first-set tiebreaker at the Australian Open in her Grand Slam debut. A visually striking player with an unorthodox game, she debuted the small bat-shaped temporary face tattoos for this spooky-themed Transylvanian tournament.

“It’s kind of a celebration of the game for me,” said the 91st-ranked Oliynykova, who is projected to move up 20 spots in the WTA rankings because of this result. “When I was at the US Open, I saw these randomly in some store and I got the idea to put these on for the match. For this tournament, it’s special because it’s thematic and it was my dream to play her. I signed up for this tournament the last year but I didn’t even enter to qualies! For me, it means a lot to play here because of the tournament itself.”

Oliynykova, who goes by “Sashka,” has used her rising profile to speak on behalf of Ukraine, which the article notes has been under siege from Russian and Belarusian aggression since 2022. She wore a pro-Ukraine shirt to her Australian Open press conference and declined to shake the hand of opponent Anna Bondar after her second-round win in Cluj-Napoca, citing Bondar’s participation in a Russian government-sanctioned exhibition tournament in 2022.

“I’m coming from a country where there is war and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. For me, it’s so important during such hard times in my country, I learned to enjoy every moment, every moment of tennis. In some way, I really celebrate the game. I’m doing this for sport, for tennis.

“I think the key, not only today but in general with the progress I’ve made, it’s tough for me that it be important whether I win or lose. I’m happy to win, of course, and it means a lot, but it’s not the most important thing. I learned to be in the moment and this is probably how I’m making it during this season and the previous season, which was super successful for me.”