After surviving a Prudential Hong Kong Open second-round epic against Ajla Tomljanovic on Wednesday, Sorana Cirstea said her love for the sport had persuaded her to continue for an astonishing 21st season on the WTA Tour.<\/p>\n
Cirstea, who will meet 2023 champion Leylah Fernandez in Friday\u2019s quarter-finals, had originally planned to retire at the end of this year.<\/p>\n
Currently ranked world No 45, the 35-year-old Romanian won her second career tour title in Cleveland in August, before a run to this month\u2019s Japan Open semi-finals, where she fell in three sets to Fernandez.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe older I\u2019ve got, the more joy I\u2019ve found in my tennis,\u201d said Cirstea, who debuted on the tour in 2006. \u201cIt\u2019s why I\u2019m still here and can produce a good level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to do what I do at my age if didn\u2019t have so much love for the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love working hard and I\u2019m fit. I\u2019ve always been aggressive and matched up well with opponents, even the new generation. I\u2019m quite coachable, which helps, because tennis progresses and you have to adapt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After surviving a Prudential Hong Kong Open second-round epic against Ajla Tomljanovic on Wednesday, Sorana Cirstea said her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[38170,116272,49,48,4850,5067,5525,15674,85772,21072,66009,9691,116271,61783,82,593,116270,2084,116273],"class_list":["post-248775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ajla-tomljanovic","tag-big-buddha","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cleveland","tag-dalma-galfi","tag-french-open","tag-hong-kong","tag-japan-open","tag-leylah-fernandez","tag-macau","tag-osaka","tag-prudential-hong-kong-tennis-open","tag-sorana-cirstea","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-the-peak","tag-us-open","tag-victoria-harbour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}