By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, August 23, 2025
Photo credit: Tennis in the Land Facebook
Sorana Cirstea turned Cleveland into revival land.
The 35-year-old Cirstea converted her fifth championship point defeating American Ann Li 6-2, 6-4 to capture the WTA 250 title in Cleveland today.
Contesting her seventh career final, Cirstea collected her third career Tour-level championship without surrendering a set.
It comes 17 years after the Romanian veteran won her maiden crown in Tashkent and four years after she won Istanbul.
The queen of Cleveland! 😍@sorana_cirstea defeats Li 6-2, 6-4 to take the title in Ohio! #TennisinTheLand pic.twitter.com/lYjAKYCoQb
— wta (@WTA) August 23, 2025
Romanian fans serenaded Cirstea with chants of “So-Ra-Na! So-Ra-Na!” and presented her with the Romanian flag and flowers
“I came here to play some matches with absolutely zero expectations,” Cirstea said. “I want to thank my coach Adrian [Cruciat].
“I couldn’t ask for a better coach. Very recently, two months ago, we got back together and then straightaway we got the title… I’m very, very grateful for [the Romanians] support. This one is for you guys as well. I didn’t think there were so many Romanians in Cleveland.”
World No. 112 Cirstea is the first qualifier to win the Tennis in the Land title. Cirstea won two qualifying matches then beat Moyuka Uchijima, Jil Teichmann, Liudmila Samsonova and Anastasia Zakharova en route to her first final of the year.
This title run propels the former world No. 21 to No. 71 in the WTA Live Rankings.
The 2023 US Open quarterfinalist pulled the plug on her 2024 season to recover from plantar fasciitis after dropping six matches in a row, then started 2025 with a 1-4 mark before reaching the Dubai quarterfinals in February.
Li, who was ranked No. 131 at this time last year, put together one of her best performances. Li stopped Yuliia Starodubtseva, Iva Jovic, Elsa Jacquemot and Xinyu Wang to advance to her second final of the season.
“Congratulations Sorana you’re playing some really good tennis—an amazing week for you and I wish you the best,” Li said. “It’s my first time here, but it’s amazing event, amazing city…
“It was a great week. Thanks to my team they’re with me through the good and the bad. I couldn’t ask for better people around me.”
Li rises to No. 58 in the live rankings after this final run.
Today, Li held to open before Cirstea rolled through six of the next seven games to snatch a one-set lead.
Li held to start the second set, but Cirstea drained forehand errors breaking for 2-1.
Serving at 3-5, 15-40, Li dug in denying two championship points then saved a third eventually earning a hard-fought hold for 4-5.
Serving for her third title, Cirstea went down 15-40 but saved both break points. Li induced a forehand error fighting off a fourth championship point.
Resetting, Cirstea drew successive netted drive to close in one hour, 24 minutes.
