Sorana Cirstea has spent nearly twenty years wrestling with the sport that shaped her. Now, at 34, she has finally made peace with an idea she once rejected outright: ending her career on her own terms. In a strikingly open conversation on the Tennis Insider Club podcast, the Romanian laid out why 2026 will be her final season — and why she wants to walk out of tennis not defeated, but fulfilled.
It was a revealing glimpse into the mind of a player who has lived through expectation, injury, reinvention and, ultimately, acceptance.
At the same time, it was fascinating to watch her sit across from Caroline Garcia — a player who walked away from the sport without regretting a single second. On one side you had someone who still loves the game deeply, and on the other, a protagonist who, by the end of her career, almost hated it.
When Pain Becomes the Loudest Voice
Cirstea’s shift did not begin in Dubai in early 2024, where a deep run was disrupted by a sharp, familiar sting in her foot. What looked like routine inflammation morphed into stubborn plantar fasciitis — a condition that left her in constant pain once the clay season began.
“It didn’t get better. It kept getting worse,” she said. “Every single day was constant pain.”
A surgery and six months away from the tour followed, a stretch she hoped would give her clarity about whether she still had joy left in the game. In the end, the time away sharpened her conviction. She still loved competing. She still craved the adrenaline. And she wanted to finish her story with dignity.
“I want to leave through the front door of this sport, with my head held high,” she said. “I don’t want tennis to kick me out and say: ‘You’re not useful anymore.’”
Yet the main shift had happened earlier, when she was around 25. That was the first time she learned to process losses differently. Before that, there had been plenty of tears — she had been climbing the rankings steadily from the age of four into her early twenties, and anything that wasn’t upward movement felt unbearable.
Dreams That Changed — and the Perspective That Didn’t
Asked whether she thinks back to her 20-year-old ambitions — No. 1, Grand Slams, the big dreams — her honesty was disarming.
“Anything other than No. 1 or winning a Grand Slam felt like failure.”
For years she carried that weight, convinced that missing those goals by 20 or 25 left a permanent scar. Today, she sees it differently.
“I had a beautiful career, but I didn’t win a Grand Slam and I wasn’t No. 1. I’ve made peace with that,” she said. “I can’t change the past — but I can change today.”
Her regrets are small and human, not dramatic: being too hard on herself, shutting down after losses, letting perfectionism choke the joy out of winning. “If I had done everything perfectly, maybe I’d have been No. 1,” she said. “I made a lot of mistakes. But I can’t live my life only by what I didn’t do.”
She grew up in an environment where she was always hard on herself — a Romanian national champion at every age group, never accustomed to losing.
“You don’t have to say, ‘I’m a piece of crap’ to get better. You can work hard and still be proud and happy.”
And she reminds herself, often, of perspective: “My best ranking was 21. People would give everything for that. What you complain about is someone else’s dream.”
An 80-Year-Old Who Changed Everything
A pillar of Cirstea’s late-career stability is her psychologist of eight years — now over 80 — who taught her that leaving tennis requires a fresh mindset, and whose conversations have reshaped everything she believes about life after the tour.
“I tell her, ‘I’m 35, I’m so old,’” Cirstea laughed. “And she says, ‘Sorana, you’re a baby. You haven’t even begun to live.’”
Those sessions stripped away the shame she once felt about playing past 30. They helped her understand why she’s still out there: not because she has nothing else, but because she loves the life tennis gave her.
“People ask, ‘Why are you still playing?’ Because it makes me happy.”
Choosing the Exit — And What She Wants to Leave Behind
For all the clarity around her decision, Cirstea insists she’s not done yet. She still has goals for 2026, and she still wants to give something back to the sport that shaped her.
“It’s not tennis leaving me,” she said. “I’m the one choosing to leave.”
And when fans look back, she hopes they remember not the ranking or the trophies, but the qualities that survived the pressure: resilience, honesty, joy, and the rediscovery of love for the game.
“It will be an emotional rollercoaster visiting all these places in the world for the last time.”
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