The Best Thing I Saw at Roland Garros Today: Sorana Cirstea is reveling in her low-pressure farewell tour

Lining up a forehand, Sorana Cirstea could see an open space in front of her that went all the way to the green wall on the far end of Court Suzanne Lenglen. Did she have the courage to try to hit the ball there, with all the pace she could muster?

A lot was riding on her decision, and her ability to execute it. The 36-year-old Romanian was in a second-set tiebreaker with Wang Xiyu, and the score was 4-4. Twenty minutes earlier, Cirstea had led the second set 5-2, and had served for the match, only to be quickly broken. She had also led the tiebreaker 4-2, but had let that lead slip away as well.

On the one hand, Cirstea’s nerves were typical and understandable. A win would put her in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros for the first time in 17 years, and continue a magical 2026 run that has made her the oldest player ever to crack the Top 20 for the first time.

On the other hand, wasn’t she supposed to be beyond nerves now? She has announced that this will be her final season on tour. That, in turn, she says, has freed her to live her best life and play her best tennis.

“I’m enjoying every single week,” Cirstea says. “I’m coming from a place where I really have no pressure. Working hard, but also having fun.”

“It’s very beautiful. I’m very grateful for everything that’s happening.”

But tennis has a way of foiling our dreams of freedom. Of making us revert to our old selves. Of forcing our nerves to the surface, even when we thought we we had buried them for good. Just when Cirstea seemed home free on Sunday, she started playing safer. She waited in vain for her opponent to miss. She let her temper flare over a bad call. The tension was rising in Lenglen, and she didn’t seem to be enjoying her last dance quite as much as she had a few minutes earlier.

I’m coming from a place where I really have no pressure. Working hard, but also having fun. It’s very beautiful. I’m very grateful for everything that’s happening. Sorana Cirstea

But Cirstea has also said that it isn’t just the freedom of impending retirement that has helped her play better this season. She says that good health and years of experience have finally come together to make her a more consistent competitor than she has ever been before. After recovering from surgery in 2024, she says she started to play “very, very good” last summer, and hasn’t dropped off since.

“It’s probably the first time in my career where I’m able to tap into that level every single match,” she says. “I was always a very dangerous player. Always I could be Top 10, but maybe sometimes I was a little bit up and down. I didn’t really know what to expect from me.”

“Now every time I’m on the court, I manage to get to at least seven out of 10.”

So when Cirstea lined up that forehand at 4-4 in the tiebreaker, she didn’t just feel a little freer because she knows this is her last year. She also had the solid confidence in her shots that comes from knowing they’ll be there for you on most days.

And they were again on Sunday. Cirstea pulled the trigger on that forehand, and the ball went all the way to the backstop for a clean winner that put her up 5-4.

“That wasn’t easy,” Mary Jo Fernandez said in the broadcast booth. “That was bold and brave by Cirstea.”

This time, with another chance to close it out, she was just as bold and brave. She controlled the next point with more strong forehands, and ended the match with a backhand winner that really did look free and easy.

Cirstea last made the quarters here when she was 19, and she’ll be facing a 19-year-old, Mirra Andreeva, in that round on Tuesday.

Is the old pro, who has new life on court, having any second thoughts about hanging up her racquet? You be the judge.

“At the moment, the decision hasn’t changed,” she says.

I feel like we might be seeing Sori, who seems to be putting everything together at 36, here again next year.