Irina Spîrlea (born 26 March 1974) is a retired tennis player from Romania who turned professional in 1990. She won four singles and six doubles titles. Spîrlea reached her career-high ranking on the

WTA Tour The WTA Tour (also known as the Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women and organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125 series, and third-tier is the ITF Wome ...

on 13 October 1997, when she became No. 7 in the world. She retired in 2000.

Personal life

Spîrlea married Massimiliano Pace, her former coach, in 2001, and has a son, Tommaso, born in 2002, as well as a younger daughter, Francesca.

Career

Irina Spîrlea is one of the more successful tennis players from Romania, being one of only three women to have reached the top 10 (the others being Virginia Ruzici and Simona Halep.) Her best performance at a Grand Slam tournament was a semifinal at the US Open in 1997. She won the WTA Newcomer of the Year award in 1994. In 1996, Spîrlea became the first player in the history of the

Women's Tennis Association The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future fo ...

to receive a match default for conduct when she swore at an official in Italian during a match played in Palermo, Italy. Spîrlea was involved in a bumping incident with

Venus Williams Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American inactive tennis player. She has been ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association, WTA for 11 wee ...

during a changeover in the semifinals of the 1997 US Open. Spîrlea collided with Williams near the net post while changing ends, and did not move sideways. Spîrlea went on to lose the match 6–7, 6–4, 6–7 in a third-set tiebreak, after holding two match points, at 6–4 and 6–5 in the tie breaker. Williams' father accused Spîrlea of racism, and later called her "an ugly white turkey".sportsillustrated.cnn.com
/ref> Spîrlea accused Williams of arrogance, saying in a press conference following the match, "I'm not going to move. She never tries to turn (...) She thinks she's the fucking Venus Williams." Spîrlea subsequently had to pay $5,000 fine for using an obscenity. At the following Grand Slam tournament, the 1998 Australian Open, Spîrlea was the first opponent of Venus' sister,

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WT ...

in the main draw and lost in three sets.

WTA career finals

Singles: 10 (4 titles, 6 runner-ups)

Doubles: 13 (6 titles, 7 runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles (3–1)

Doubles (5–8)

Singles performance timeline

Record against other top players

Spîrlea's win–loss record against certain players who have been ranked world No. 10 or higher is as follows: ''Players who have been ranked world No. 1 are in boldface.'' * Dominique Monami 6–3 *

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario Aránzazu Isabel María "Arantxa" Sánchez Vicario (; born 18 December 1971) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 12 weeks, as well as ...

5–5 * Mary Joe Fernández 4–0 *

Karina Habšudová Karina Habšudová (; born 2 August 1973) is a Slovak former professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as 10 in the world (1997). Together with Karol Kučera, she won the 1998 Hopman Cup, Hopman Cup in 1998. Her best performance at ...

4–1 *

Amanda Coetzer Amanda Coetzer (born 22 October 1971, in Hoopstad) is a South African former professional tennis player. Coetzer finished in the WTA rankings top 20 for ten consecutive seasons (1992–2001), peaking at world No. 3. She reached three Grand Sla ...

4–4 *

Julie Halard-Decugis Julie Halard-Decugis (born 10 September 1970) is a French former professional tennis player. Tennis career Halard-Decugis lived in La Baule, France, during the initial stages of her career and later moved to Pully, Switzerland. She turned profe ...

3–2 * Ai Sugiyama 3–2 * Mary Pierce 3–5 *

Monica Seles Monica Seles (born December 2, 1973) is a Serbian–American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...

3–5 * Barbara Schett 2–0 * Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 2–0 * Anna Kournikova 2–1 *

Sandrine Testud Sandrine Testud (born 3 April 1972) is a former professional tennis player from France. Career Testud broke into top 20 singles rankings in July 1997. On February 7, 2000, she became the sixth Frenchwoman after Françoise Dürr, Mary Pierce, ...

2–1 * Gabriela Sabatini 2–2 * Chanda Rubin 2–3 *

Natasha Zvereva Natalya "Natasha" Maratovna Zvereva (born 16 April 1971) is a former professional tennis player from Belarus. She was the first major athlete in the Soviet Union to demand publicly that she should be able to keep her tournament earnings. Zver ...

2–5 *

Lori McNeil Lori McNeil (born December 18, 1963) is an American tennis coach and former top 10 player. McNeil was a singles semifinalist at the US Open (tennis), US Open in 1987 and The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon in 1994, a women's doubles finalis ...

1–0 *

Paola Suárez Paola Suárez (; born 23 June 1976) is a retired tennis player from Argentina. She was one of the most prominent women's doubles players throughout the early and mid-2000s, winning eight Grand Slam titles, all of them with Virginia Ruano Pascua ...

1–0 * Andrea Temesvári 1–0 * Nathalie Tauziat 1–2 *

1–3 *

Conchita Martínez Conchita Martínez Bernat (born 16 April 1972) is a Spanish former professional tennis player and current coach. She was the first Spaniard to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon, doing so in 1994. Martínez also was the runner-up at th ...

1–4 * Barbara Paulus 1–4 *

Lindsay Davenport Lindsay Ann Davenport Leach (born June 8, 1976) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 98 weeks (including as the year-end No. 1 four ...

1–6 *

Anke Huber Anke Huber (born 4 December 1974) is a German retired professional tennis player. She was the runner-up in women's singles at the 1996 Australian Open and the 1995 WTA Finals. Huber won 12 singles and one doubles title on the WTA Tour. She fi ...

1–7 * Kimiko Date 0–1 * Zina Garrison 0–1 *

Martina Navratilova Martina Navratilova (, ; ; born October18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, singles for 332 weeks (List of WTA number ...

0–1 *

Patty Schnyder Patty Schnyder (born 14 December 1978)
Weltwoche, 14. September 2011 is a Swiss reti ...

0–1 * Jennifer Capriati 0–2 *

Steffi Graf Stefanie Maria Graf ( , ; born 14 June 1969) is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a r ...

0–2 * Iva Majoli 0–3 *

Martina Hingis Martina Hingis (, ; born 30 September 1980) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 209 weeks ( fifth-most of all time) and as the world No. ...

0–6 *

Jana Novotná Jana Novotná (; 2 October 1968 – 19 November 2017) was a Czech professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 2 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) in 1997, and as the world No. 1 in women's doubles for 67 weeks. ...

0–6

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spirlea, Irina 1974 births Hopman Cup competitors Living people Tennis players from Bucharest Romanian female tennis players Tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Olympic tennis players for Romania Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' doubles French Open junior champions