Romanian tennis player Simona Halep will face Italian Lucia Bronzetti in the first round of the Transylvania Open (WTA 250) tournament, which will begin on Monday at BTarena in Cluj-Napoca, according to the draw made on Saturday.
Halep (33 years old, WTA's 868th), who has not played since the end of October, will meet Bronzetti (26 years old, WTA's 66th) for the first time on Tuesday. Bronzetti won the Billie Jean King Cup with the Italian team at the end of last year.
Jaqueline Cristian (WTA's 6st) and Sorana Cirstea (WTA's 70th) will face opponents from the qualifiers.
Irina Begu (WTA's 78th) will debut against Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto (WTA's 59th), whom she has defeated in both previous encounters.
Gabriela Ruse (WTA's 113th) will face Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina (WTA's 48th), the fourth seed, with each having one win in their head-to-head matches.
Ana Bogdan (WTA's 119th) will play against British Jodie Burrage (WTA's 150th) in a first-time meeting.
Russian Anastasia Potapova will be the top seed and will play against Austrian Julia Grabher in the first round.
Danish Clara Tauson, who was supposed to be the second seed, withdrew from the tournament, the organisers announced. As a result, the second seed spot was taken by Serbian Olga Danilovic, who will face American Alycia Parks in the first round.
The fifth edition of Romania's most important tennis tournament will take place at the BTarena multipurpose hall in Cluj-Napoca. The matches will be played indoors on hard courts on the two tennis courts set up. A total of 32 players will compete in the singles matches, and 16 teams will compete in doubles, for 250 WTA points and prize money totaling 275,094 dollars.
Main Singles Draw:
- Anastasia Potapova (Russia/N.1) - Julia Grabher (Austria)
- Arantxa Rus (Netherlands) - Viktorija Golubic (Switzerland)
- Qualifier - Ana Blinkova (Russia)
- Qualifier - Jaqueline Cristian (Romania/N.8)
- Anhelina Kalinina (Ukraine/N.4) - Gabriela Ruse (Romania)
- Qualifier - Suzan Lamens (Netherlands)
- Sorana Cîrstea (Romania) - Qualifier
- Laura Siegemund (Germany) - Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (Spain/N.6)
- Elisabetta Cocciaretto (Italy/N.7) - Irina Begu (Romania)
- Ana Bogdan (Romania) - Jodie Burrage (UK)
- Simona Halep (Romania) - Lucia Bronzetti (Italy)
- Varvara Gracheva (France) - Peyton Stearns (USA/N.3)
- Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic/N.5) - Qualifier
- Qualifier - Caroline Dolehide (USA)
- Mayar Sherif (Egypt) - Viktoria Tomova (Bulgaria)
- Olga Danilovic (Serbia/N.2) - Alycia Parks (USA)