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 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.Article in Romanian Article in Romanian 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.)
Article in Romanian  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 to receive a match default for conduct when she swore at an official in Italian during a match played in Palermo, Italy.The Enquirer – This article is no longer availableCNN/SI – US Open Player Profiles
Spîrlea was involved in a bumping incident with Venus Williams 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 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."
Williams, however, shrugged off the confrontation saying "I thought we both weren't looking.
I'm sorry she feels that way.
It's not a big thing to me.
No one said 'Excuse me'.Father of tennis star Venus Williams charges racism during recent U.S. Open – Richard Williams|Jet|Find Articles at BNET.com 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 5–5
Mary Joe Fernández 4–0
Karina Habšudová 4–1
Amanda Coetzer 4–4
Julie Halard-Decugis 3–2
Ai Sugiyama 3–2
Mary Pierce 3–5
Monica Seles 3–5
Barbara Schett 2–0
Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 2–0
Anna Kournikova 2–1
Sandrine Testud 2–1
Gabriela Sabatini 2–2
Chanda Rubin 2–3
Natasha Zvereva 2–5
Lori McNeil 1–0
Paola Suárez 1–0
Andrea Temesvári 1–0
Nathalie Tauziat 1–2
Serena Williams 1–3
Venus Williams 1–3
Conchita Martínez 1–4
Barbara Paulus 1–4
Lindsay Davenport 1–6
Anke Huber 1–7
Kimiko Date 0–1
Zina Garrison 0–1
Martina Navratilova 0–1
Patty Schnyder 0–1
Jennifer Capriati 0–2
Steffi Graf 0–2
Iva Majoli 0–3
Martina Hingis 0–6
Jana Novotná 0–6
References
External links
