Romanian tennis player Irina Begu is close to a historical performance, as she is set to play two semifinals in the same day at the Internazionali BNL D’Italia in Rome.

Irina Begu, 25, managed to win two matches in the competition’s quarter finals, on Friday, May 13. She beat Japan’s Misaki Doi in the singles competition (6-2,7-6) and a few hours later she and her Romanian teammate Monica Niculescu eliminated the Hungarian-Kazakh duo Timea Babos/Yaroslava Shvedova (7-6, 6-3).

She played over three hours in total and is set to have two big matches on Saturday. In the singles competition she may play against American Serena Williams, the world’s number one, for a place in the final of the WTA Premier 5 tournament. Williams was set to play against Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova later on Friday.

Update: Serena Williams beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in two sets (6-2, 6-0) and will be Irina Begu's opponent in the semifinals.

In the doubles competition, Begu and Niculescu face top pair Martina Hinghis/Sania Mirza, who make by far the best women’s doubles duo in the world.

Winning either of these two semifinals would be Begu’s top career performance so far. She has two singles titles and four doubles wins, but none of them in a WTA Premier 5 tournament such as the one in Rome.

In the men's doubles competition, Romanian Florin Mergea and his teammate, Indian Rohan Bopanna, also reached the semifinals. Mergea and Bopanna also played the final in Madrid last week, which they lost to Romanian-Dutch duo Horia Tecau/Jean-Julien Rojer.

Romania's Irina Begu wins WTA tournament in Seoul

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Internazionali BNL D'Italia on Facebook)