{"id":79116,"date":"2025-02-02T12:57:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T17:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=79116"},"modified":"2025-02-02T12:57:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T17:57:50","slug":"wta-cluj-napoca-day-1-predictions-cirstea-stakusic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/02\/wta-cluj-napoca-day-1-predictions-cirstea-stakusic\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Cluj-Napoca Day 1 Predictions Including Sorana Cirstea vs Marina Stakusic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 Transylvania Open kicks off on Monday with five singles main draw matches at WTA Cluj-Napoca. That includes two Romanians who will be hoping to excite their home crowd. As ever, we here at LWOT will be offering our predictions for every match on the slate, as well as the action in Abu Dhabi, but who will book their spot in the second round?<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Cluj-Napoca Day 1 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Mayar Sherif vs Viktoriya Tomova<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Tomova 1-0 Sherif<\/p>\n<p>Mayar Sherif is no indoor goat, but from time to time she can grab a win on any surface. Especially in a matchup where her extreme forehand grip won&#8217;t be pressured.\u00a0 Viktoriya Tomova can certainly track down balls though and she will force the Egyptian to literally blast the court. Normally it would really be a great opportunity for Sherif to grab the rare win off clay, but after her performance in Linz last week it&#8217;s kind of hard to trust she&#8217;ll execute her game well enough here.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Tomova in 3<br \/>\n#<a id=\"1jWUBC3FQ9h5OZB_i359NA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2195977919\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'1jWUBC3FQ9h5OZB_i359NA',sig:'jfioGEFGcdc1LnHa9ryO3hITqMRc0e1mpcuQ3G5srr8=',w:'594px',h:'397px',items:'2195977919',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Anna Bondar vs Suzan Lamens<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Lamens 1-0 Bondar<\/p>\n<p>The step up Suzan Lamens took in her game at the tail end of last year was very impressive. It&#8217;s already brought her a first WTA Tour title and she&#8217;s ranked pretty deep inside the Top 100 now. Anna Bondar isn&#8217;t to be underestimated though and qualifying to the main draw can help her enter this encounter with plenty of momentum. But Lamens is probably the better player and won their only clash in Hong Kong just a few months ago.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Lamens in 3<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Daria Snigur vs Caroline Dolehide<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>Caroline Dolehide was playing an indoor event on another side of the globe last week and was unfortunate to run into top-seeded Anna Kalinskaya in the opening round. But she gave her a good fight and her weaponry should generally translate to these conditions quite well (even without that much experience). Daria Snigur posted a very nice win over Anca Todoni in the qualifying, but will need to respond to some very serious power coming from the American here.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Dolehide in 2<br \/>\n<a id=\"fvqPmZjiQil16PSSTxIjTg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2193565996\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'fvqPmZjiQil16PSSTxIjTg',sig:'X5QJC7ZNAvCuDowmWwDYk0DQ9DnncAO7EWQW-3hMRWI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2193565996',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Anhelina Kalinina vs Elena-Gabriela Ruse<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> Kalinina 1-1 Ruse<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s always a bit suprising to see Elena-Gabriela Ruse outside the top 100, but that&#8217;s a reflection of the reality that the Romanian very rarely finds her peak game throughout a full season. The last two Slams were a great example of how strong she can be as he almost knocked out Paula Badosa at the US Open and then<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/01\/26\/madison-keys-journey-prodigy-grand-slam-champion\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"> Madison Keys at the Australian Open<\/a>. Yes, the keyword is almost. But she&#8217;s a former finalist at this event and with home crowd support, this time she might actually produce the (milder) upset.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Ruse in 3<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Sorana Cirstea vs Marina Stakusic<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>Sorana Cirstea has been hinting at retirement in her recent interviews, which is very understandable considering she spent the entire second half of last year injured. But she did get a win on the board in Linz last week and probably should have won even more comfortably against Arantxa Rus. The ball-striking quality is still there to be accessed when she shakes off the rust. If she can play anything close to her best level, Marina Stakusic might be a little outmatched.<\/p>\n<p><em>Prediction: Cirstea in 2<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Main photo credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 Transylvania Open kicks off on Monday with five singles main draw matches at WTA Cluj-Napoca. That includes two Romanians who will be hoping to excite their home crowd. As ever, we here at LWOT will be offering our predictions for every match on the slate, as well as the action in Abu Dhabi, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2968,"featured_media":79121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[7418,15925,13445,16358,3124,16859,7259,17766,5227,16390,18057,18053,11655,16294,602,15445,17500,17501,2373,2369,8604,15699,16541],"class_list":["post-79116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-anhelina-kalinina","tag-anhelina-kalinina-predictions","tag-anna-bondar","tag-anna-bondar-predictions","tag-caroline-dolehide","tag-caroline-dolehide-predictions","tag-daria-snigur","tag-daria-snigur-predictions","tag-elena-gabriela-ruse","tag-elena-gabriela-ruse-predictions","tag-marina-stakusic","tag-marina-stakusic-predictions","tag-mayar-sherif","tag-mayar-sherif-predictions","tag-sorana-cirstea","tag-sorana-cirstea-predictions","tag-suzan-lamens","tag-suzan-lamens-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-viktoriya-tomova","tag-viktoriya-tomova-predictions","tag-wta-cluj-napoca-predictions"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2968"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79122,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79116\/revisions\/79122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}