Sorana Cîrstea

She was injured during her semifinal in Wuhan against Swiatek, and she has a tough opener against Marie Bouzková, who tested her a lot during their US Open third round match.

Sorana Cîrstea is also here as a potential quarterfinal opponent.

Swiatek is currently 545 points behind Karolína Muchová in the finals race, and even if she wins Ningbo, she'd have to win a match in Tokyo next week to surpass Muchová, and that's if Muchová does not take a wild card into Tokyo.

But Marta is still in the running as well, but she would need to win both Ningbo and Tokyo in order to surpass Muchová.

Made her big push last summer.

And I was there in person when she makes the final in Cleveland and, you know, plays a really fun match with Sorana Cirstea in that final.

Followed that up by making the round of 16 in Beijing.

Wins the title in Guangzhou to close out the year.

Yeah.

There's dangerous players on paper like Siniakova, Samsonova, and Cirstea, but I'm looking at Svitolina going, I like her chances.

I do as well.

She's been pretty consistent all year.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, honestly, it could go...

Yeah, I think Cirstea's gonna be motivated as well because, you know, it's like literally one of her final tournaments.

Mm.

But trying to get back to that stage, whether she can or not, we'll have to see.

Um, Ostapenko, sh- again, another player, she hasn't won back-to-back matches since Wimbledon, when she retired here in her only match last year when she lost to Sorana Cîrstea.

I think she lost the first set and retired, retired afterwards.

Um, she did win her opening matches though in Seoul and Beijing, and, uh, she was a break up in that final set against Elise Mertens.

Again, I still would put that a shade low.

Like, I still just think the best version of her in a single match is, certainly would be better than a Muchova who's ahead of her at 21, a Collins Sky at 20, a Neola at 19, a Cirstea maybe at 16, although not, not Cirstea's season, maybe a Schneider at 13, a Bencic at 12.

Like, she is in this top 15 conversation.

And that she's worked herself back into it so quickly here down the home stretch of 2026.

I think she had quite heavy strapping on her leg that day, if, if memory serves.

And, uh, Sorana Cîrstea she lost to, and also Amanda Anisimova.

So she's only sort of losing to top 20 players in the world right now, Bartyková.

Obviously, she had that amazing performance against Sabalenka, um, winning 6-4, 6-3.