A FORMER tennis star who dreamed of becoming the next Simona Halep is now a surgeon.
The 28-year-old impressed as a youngster but quit tennis at an early age.
Ioana Ducu once won the junior French Open[/caption]
She is now a surgeon after quitting tennis several years ago[/caption]
Ducu works in her native Romania[/caption]
She only won one senior tennis tournament[/caption]
Injuries were ever-present throughout her career so the former star was never able to live up to her potential.
Ioana Ducu quit the sport in 2017 after several shoulder injuries, one of which required a seven-hour operation.
Now Ducu is set to be on the other end of the knife as she is a resident surgeon at the Floreasca Emergency Clinical Hospital in Bucharest
The Romanian works the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology and reportedly aims to focus on arthroscopy and sports traumatology.
Ducu once wanted to follow in the footsteps of her compatriot Halep, who won two grand slam titles including Wimbledon.
But despite winning the junior French Open at Rolland Garros in 2014, she failed to adapt at senior level.
Ducu’s highest world ranking was 830 and she won only one tournament, the Doubles at ITF Sharm El Sheikh.
Speaking as a hopeful junior, Ducu said she wanted to emulate Halep’s success on court.
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Tennis stars’ new careers
PLENTY of tennis stars have stayed involved in the sport since retiring.
But others pursued very different careers. Here are some of the best…
- I reached French Open and Wimbledon finals as a teenager but I quit to become a nun
- I won Wimbledon mixed doubles with my sister but got fed up with English weather so now run luxury B&B
- I was tipped for stardom aged 12 but retrained to become high-flying lawyer
- I earned £9m and won French Open before setting up bistro with Brazilian model girlfriend
- I’m last Frenchman to win Roland Garros, now I’m singer with six albums hitting No1 in charts
- I’m former world No1 but quit aged 29 – instead I went on to play professional poker and golf
- I was destined for the top but swapped lobs for labs as award-winning Harvard physicist
She said: “Simona Halep is my favourite athlete. I watch her every chance I get and try to steal as much as possible from her. I like her technique, we are similar in many ways.
“I hope that at some point I can also reach her performances. It takes a lot of work but I hope I will be able to go as far as possible.”
