You’ve announced your plans to retire at the end of the season, and since then all you have done is win. A title on home soil in Cluj-Napoca, your first ever win over a world No.1 in Madrid, and now your top-20 debut at 36. Does it feel like this is all a dream? 

I'm actually living my dream, and to be honest I don't know what changed. And from my point of view I'm still doing the same things. I'm still as disciplined. I still have as much passion for the sport, maybe even more, because it’s my last year. 

What’s helping you unlock this level of success?

I don't know how many people know this but I absolutely love tennis. Maybe the only thing is that I have more joy and I don't put that much pressure on results like I used to. I think this would be the only difference.

But you’ve always had the game to achieve great things.

I feel that the last couple of years I've been quite consistent. I never thought I would play until this age – I was gonna retire around 30. And then COVID happened and I just took it year by year. Since COVID, I was always ranked around No.20 or No.30, and then I had a surgery two years ago. But the level was there. Maybe the consistency that I'm showing every single week right now, it wasn't there.

Do you find it a bit crazy, that’s it playing out this way? 

Like you say, it's a beautiful story and I'm very grateful with everything that's happening, and I'm trying to take everything in, and every single memory that I have, to keep it in my heart and put it there forever. 

Is it a little bit of a tricky balance, trying not to get lost in the dream a little bit and stay focused, like you've always been your whole career? 

I think, from this point of view, I'm quite good because even if I announced this was gonna be my last year I still came into 2026 with a lot of goals. Not result-oriented but goals focused on my game, on things I wanted to improve on – my movement, my mentality.  I still feel like every single practice I have things that I can improve and things that I work on. 

I don't just go on court to have fun. Yes, I try to smile, yes, I try to enjoy myself a little bit but at the end of the day, I'm very competitive and this is how I've been all my life. I think right now I have found that balance between being very ambitious and still having goals to improve, but also trying to let go of the emotions and just enjoy a bit more. 


Does it get annoying when people tell you you should keep playing, or is it more of a compliment? 

It's a compliment, of course, it's never annoying to have the support of the people, and to have so many nice things said to me, it's never annoying. It's always a compliment and I'm not taking it lightly. 

Would you say this is your best season ever on tour? 

I think it's close. I don't know... I'm not really sure because I've never been one to keep statistics and stuff, but what I can say is that it's the most consistent year I've had. Except for one or two tournaments, the rest I've been able to keep the same level. And for me, this means a lot, and also let's hope I stay healthy. 

Some people say it’s better to go out on top.

My dream was always to finish while I'm still playing good, while I'm still at the top.
I wanted to go out on the front door of tennis with a big smile on my face. I didn't want to just retire because my ranking dropped, or I got injured, or things didn't go my way anymore.

When you do retire, what do you want your legacy to be? 


I would like to be remembered as a very kind player, and that I was very nice to everyone in the locker room, and that I was a person that worked hard.

Not even the results, just more about being a good person?


Yes, absolutely. That always goes before the results. 


You said you don't know if it's your best season. But maybe it could be. Do you have that hope, that some other things will happen? 

Of course. I mean, there's still plenty of dreams and still plenty of things I want to achieve, but, like I said, I'm trying to not focus so much on the results, I want to focus on the day-to-day work and let things go a little bit, and also accept. 

I think this was a little bit hard in my career, to accept when I had a bad day or when I had a bad loss –  it took me a while to come back. But now I'm a little bit more relaxed about it. I think it's a lot, it's maturity. It's experience and love for the sport, it's discipline. A lot of things that have to come together. 


If somebody said to you in January, you're going to win a title on home soil for the first time, you're going to defeat a world No.1 for the first time. You're going to break the top-20 for the first time.
Would you have believed it? 

I think deep down I always believed in myself. Sometimes I believed too much and then I put too much pressure on myself, because every single tournament I stepped on the court I wanted to win it, and so if someone would have told me this at the beginning of the year, I would be like, Okay, finally!