HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEXANDRA!

Yes, yesterday Alexandra Dulgheru, the best Romanian female tennis player of the moment, turned 21. Two weeks ago she won the second title of the career, at the tournament she won the first one. So, she didn't loose any match in Warsaw since now, but defended Na Li, Jie Zheng, Alona Bondarenko and other top players.

Here are some wishes from a few fans around the world:

Katarzyna, Poland: Alexandra, I saw you playing at Warsaw and, trust me, you was amazing. I was very happy you won. I wish you all the best and more titles!

Julie, Belgium: I watched you playing a lot of matches and you know what I think? I think you have a big potential! Be strong, we want to see you in Top 10! Oh, and happy birthday!

Sophie, France: Happy birthday, have a great year and have fun at your party!!!

Bogdan, Romania: La multi ani, felicitari pentru rezultate si toate cele bune! Toata familia mea te urmareste si speram sa te vedem in top 20! / Happy birthday, congrats for your results and all the best! All my family watches your matches and we hope to see you on Top 20!

Ioana, Romania: Mai, Alexandra, ce pot sa spun... Ne faci mandri ca suntem romani! Vad ca toata lumea te-a felicitat, deci o voi face si eu. Felicitari pentru titlul de la Varsovia, in primul rand, si pentru meciul impotriva lui Wozniacki. Ai jucat super! La multi ani, sa ai o vara plina de bucurie si succese! / Alexandra, what can I say... You make Romania proud! I see everybody congratulated you, so I will too. Congrats for the title in Warsaw, first of all, and for your match against Wozniacki. You played great! Happy birthday, have a great summer, full of happiness and good luck!

Player of the week : Teimuraz Gabashvili

Despite being the lowest-ranked player in the round of 16, Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili’s hard work is finally paying off.

“I haven’t won anything yet, so don’t ask me to do interesting poses,” says Gabashvili, who certainly doesn’t mince his words – on or off court. When he’s not happy, he says so, and usually doesn’t waste any time in the process. So, no, he will not lie down on the bench in the main interview room for our photo shoot in the French Open press centre. On court, the Russian’s temper has at times prevented him from capitalising on a powerful stroke.

However, he just defeated Andy Roddick, and will soon play the first fourth-round Grand Slam match of his career. All that after making it through the qualifiers! But the Russian isn’t one to gloat. And if he wants to make the top 20, he still has a lot of work to do. The road to success, “that everyone has been talking about since I was young,” is a steep one.

His next opponent is Jurgen Melzer, the 22nd seeded.

Teimuraz, you made a beautiful surprise yesterday, defeating Andy, so I want to congratulate you, first of all, and to wish you the best luck, I hope to see you in the quarters! :-)

FRENCH OPEN : First round in review

12 Russians and 3 Romanians out . 11 Russians and 2 Romanians advance

There were three full days in Paris, with great winnings and unexpected surprises.

So let's start with the men's tour.

Unfortunatelly, Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn from Russia lost their matches. Tursunov was defended by a player from the country which is the master of clay: Spain. He lost to Daniel Gimeno-Traver, after a long time while he was not able to play. The Russian won only 3 games, the Spanish winning, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1. Igor Kunitsyn, who has to be congratulated because the last week-end his wife gave birth to a healthy cute kid, played against another Spanish, a top 10 player, who was the finalist in the Madrid Masters, Fernando Verdasco. He was defended, 4-6, 2-6, 2-6.

Mikhail Youzhny and Teimuraz Gabashvili from Russia and Victor Hanescu from Romania won and will play in the 2nd round in the most important clay tournament.

In the women's tour we already can talk about surprises, or, better said, about one big surprise: Dinara Safina. Last year's finalist, the Russian lost to Kimiko Date Krumm in 3 sets, 6-3, 4-6, 5-7. Safina was injured since Australian Open, but came back at Stuttgart. She was not in form since then and, after Madrid, she separated by the coach who made her no.1 WTA, Zeliko Krajan. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Anastasia Pivovarova, Vera Zvonareva, Alisa Kleybanova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Kirilenko, Alexandra Dulgheru, Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova won their matches and have the chance to play in the second round, while Ivanova, Alla Kudryavtseva, Anna Chakvetadze, Bychkova, Ekaterina Makarova, Elena Vesnina, Sorana Cirstea, Simona Halep and Ioana Raluca Olaru stopped in the 1st round.

Well, it's hard to see that Dinara can't play like she did last year, when she won at Madrid and Rome and played the final at Australian Open and French Open. She is and she will be always my favourite and I'm really sorry for her and because she doesn't work anymore with Zeliko. I really liked him and I think he is one of the best. On the other side, I'm happy for Svetlana, for Alexandra, Victor, Mikhail and of course for all the Romanian and Russian players and I hope they will make a good game and a good result at this tournament.

Alexandra, you deserve the crown in Warsaw!

One year ago she made quite the first impression in Warsaw, qualifying for her very first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour main draw then going all the way to the title. She went quiet for a while but this year's clay court season brought back that fire, and Alexandra Dulgheru has repeated her Cinderella run, winning her second career title at the Polsat Warsaw Open.

Last year, a 20-year-old Dulgheru came into Warsaw ranked No.201 in the world and surprised everyone, beating Alona Bondarenko to become just the fifth player in Tour history to win a title while ranked outside the Top 200 - and first to do it at a Premier-level tournament.

With a pair of Top 10 wins on clay this year, over Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva, and coming in ranked No.32, Dulgheru was not the longshot she was last year. But winning back-to-back titles at a Premier stop is quite the feat, and she was unseeded, too. She beat No.7 seed Kateryna Bondarenko in the first round then beat China's Top 2 in the last two rounds, first edging No.3 seed Na Li in the semis, 64 36 64, and No.5 seed Jie Zheng in the final, 63 64.

Alexandra, tu esti viitorul tenisului romanesc! Succes la Roland Garros! / Alexandra, you're the future of the Romanian tennis! Good luck at Roland Garros!

Queen Alexandra in Warsaw!

Last year, in Warsaw, a 20-years-old girl from Romania caused one of the sensations of 2009 when she won the Premier-level Polsat Warsaw Open as a qualifier ranked No.201. In the moment she arrived in Poland, she had never won a main draw match on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. But thinkgs changed in that city which certainly will remain imprinted in her mind. She notched wins over seeded players Sara Errani, Daniela Hantuchova and Alona Bondarenko, earning by far the biggest paycheck of her career and zinging to No.83 with a bullet. 2010 started extremely well for Alexandra Dulgheru. She reached the semis in Barcelona, defeated Dinara Safina at Rome and Elena Dementieva at Madrid. This week she's at a new career-high ranking of No.32 - a clear sign she belongs, not least because it means a seeding Roland Garros.

How does it feel to be back in Warsaw as defending champion?
AD: Honestly, I can't believe one year has already passed. It feels like yesterday. But it's a great feeling to be back. It's my first time defending a title like this. I hope I can do well here but there's no reason to be too stressed. It's a tough draw; tougher than last year.

Could you really believe it when you won the tournament?
AD: No, it was like a dream come true. When I won, I couldn't stop the feeling that I still had another match to play… I couldn't believe it was over. It was a magical week.

What was it like afterwards, adjusting to your new status and the expectations that came with that?
AD: I went from around 200 to 80 in one week, which was was amazing but a strange feeling as well. I knew how much work it would normally to take to make that leap, and I still had to do that work.

Did it feel like a luxury to suddenly be gaining direct entry to Tour events?
AD: Yes, it did. Before, I was playing qualifying and was often first or second or third alternate for entry, so I never knew what plane tickets to buy! After the run here I was straight in there to the main draws most of the time. It was wonderful.

You had a bit of a tough time after Warsaw, though.
AD: Yes, it was difficult. I had already missed the ranking cut-off for Roland Garros so after Warsaw I went to Eastbourne and I sprained my ankle there. I couldn't play for a month, and then I pretty much went straight to the US circuit, which is a really tough part of the calendar. I talked with my coach and we decided not to focus so much on the results, but just on playing well and getting used to my new situation.

The last few months you've started winning matches pretty much every week, and had a couple of major wins - what's changed?
AD: Towards the end of last year and at the beginning of this year I had some really tough matches in the first and second rounds. I think I drew Wickmayer three times, in the second round at Linz, the first round of Luxembourg and at the Australian Open. I also played Kim Clijsters and Marion Bartoli. Then I started to get some easier draws, if I can say that. In reality nothing is easy, but at least they were matches where I could play my game, and that helped my confidence a lot.

What do you consider to be the best match you've played in the last year?
AD: Even though I lost in the end, I liked my match against Wickmayer at the Australian Open - it was 10-8 in the third set - and my match with Clijsters at Marbella. But the matches I enjoyed the most were against Safina and more so Dementieva. Safina was a good match, but I could tell she was uncomfortable on the court, coming off a long break. Even if I had lost the match against Dementieva I would still think it was a great match for me.

How has your game developed over the past 12 months?
AD: Just being there with all the big players makes your game improve, in every way. It has to. Confidence has a lot to do with it.

Do you have any particular aims for this year? Do you set ranking targets or specific tournament goals?
AD: Not really. I just want to improve the soft spots, be more aggressive and get some more power in my game. And it's my first full season at this level, so I also want to make sure that I keep enjoying it.

Roland Garros without Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev!

Tennis stars Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev will not play the most important clay tournament, Roland Garros.

Andreev (45 ATP) is not able to play in this Grand Slam because of an ankle injury from the match against Victor Hanescu (ROU) in the 1st round in Madrid. Igor reached the QF at the French Open in 2007.

Top ranked Davydenko (6 ATP) suffered a serious wrist injury. The French Open semifinalist (2005, 2007) will miss the tournament and hopes he will get better and will be able to play the Wimbledon in London.

I wish you all the best, guys and I and all your fans around the world wait you back!

Sorana Cirstea (ROU) and Anabel Medina Garrigues (ESP) win first team title!!!

Top seeds Sorana Cirstea and Anabel Medina Garrigues captured their first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour team title on Saturday after they beat Vitalia Diatchenko and Aurélie Védy 6-1, 7-5 in the Estoril Open doubles final.

"I'm really happy to win the Estoril Open," said Cirstea. "It was really weird conditions here with it raining all morning and us changing venues, but I want to thank Anabel for playing with me. We make a really good team!"

It was Cirstea’s third tour-level doubles title, while Medina Garrigues won her 14th trophy, a total that includes two Roland Garros crowns with Virginia Ruano Pascual in 2008 and 2009.

After the trophy presentation, the titlists headed for Lisbon airport to catch a flight to Madrid.

Felicitari, Sorana, si asteptam cu totii aceeasi performanta si la simplu! Succes! / Congratulations, Sorana, and we wait the same performance in singles! Good luck!

Dreams come true for the young talented stars!

This week the young tennis stars Anna Lapushchenkova (RUS) and Simona Halep (ROU) prooved their talent and determination in Stuttgart and Fes.

Anna had to play the qualification in Stuttgart, loosing only a set. In the competition, she started by winning over world's no.43, Olga Govortsova (BLR), 6-4, 6-1. But a bigger match was close. She played against one of the best tennis players of the moment, world's no.9 and the 6th favourite, Viktoria Azarenka (BLR). This was the most important victory, 6-4, 6-4. In the quarterfinals she played against Lucie Safarova (CZE), world's no.38 and a very talented player. It was a tough match, finished with the Russian's victory, 7-6, 1-6, 6-1. Unfortunatelly, her wishes were stopped in the semifinals by Sam Stosur (AUS), a very in shape opponent, 5-7, 3-6.

Simona also played qualification in Fes. Her first opponent was world's no.74 and the 8th seeded Lucie Hradecka (CZE). The score was 7-5, 6-1. Next she played against world's no.154, Olga Savchuk (UKR). Savchuk was not enough strong physically and mentally, so the Romanian won pretty easy, 6-3, 6-1. In the quarterfinals a very powerful player and the 2nd seeded of the competition was waiting for her: Patty Schnyder (SUI). But Simona was not scared, she played her best and she made the 2nd big surprise of the tournament, after Suarez Navarro's lose: she won, 6-2, 7-6. Next, in the semifinals she played against Renata Voracova (CZE), who eliminated in the 1st round the 4th seeded, Melinda Czink. Halep fought at the same high level and won, 7-5, 6-4. Simona Halep was for the first time in the WTA final, without loosing a set! It seemed to be an advantage against her final opponent, the 7th seeded Iveta Benesova, who lost already two sets. Unfortunatelly, it wasn't. Benesova was very determined, after she lost to Simona a few weeks ago and captured the title. The score was 4-6, 2-6.

Like a big tennis fan, I can say I'm very happy when I see these young stars raising, because I'm sure they could bring something new, something personal to this sport.