SIMONA HALEP SHOULD BE REMEMBERED FOR MORE THAN A FAILED DRUG TEST

Simona Halep has announced her retirement from tennis, with the two-time Grand Slam champion bringing down the curtain on a career that will be remembered for so much more than just her successes on court.

An emotional Halep confirmed she had given up on her attempts to overcome a knee problem that has troubled her for some time after she lost 6-1, 6-1 against Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti in front of her home fans at the Transylvania Open.

Halep had hinted her tennis journey may be coming to an end prior to the match, but she took the microphone on court and made her announcement with grace and class.

“Tonight, I don’t know if it’s with joy or sadness, I think both feelings are trying me but I’m making this decision with my soul,” the Romanian said.

“I’ve always been realistic with myself and with my body.

“Where I probably was, it’s very hard to get there and I know what it means to get there. That’s why I wanted to come here today in Cluj to play in front of you and say goodbye.

“Even though my performance wasn’t very good it was still my soul and I’m very glad you came, and I’ll wonder if I’ll come back again. But for now it’s the last time I’ve played here and I don’t want to cry.

“It’s a beautiful thing. I became world number one, I won grand slams, it’s all I wanted. Life goes on, there is life after tennis and I hope that we will see each other again.

“I’ll come to the tennis here as often as I can and of course, I will continue to play – but to be competitive it requires much more and at this moment it is no longer.”

Halep’s final wave to Romanian tennis fans as she left the court was laced with emotion and probably some regret, as the final chapters of her career have been less than satisfactory.

Her 2018 French Open win and her victory at Wimbledon a year later are the stand-out moments this former world No 1 would like to be remembered for, yet it is a positive doping test will always be part of her story.

Halep was banned for four years in September 2023, just over a year after she tested positive for roxadustat, a drug used to treat anaemia, as well as irregularities in her blood passport.

The suspension was reduced to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, by which point she had already been out of the game for nearly a year and a half, after they accepted her explanation of a contaminated supplement.

The length of her ban and the appeal process that kept her off the court was the subject of intense debate, especially when world No 1 Jannik Sinner failed a doping test last March and was allowed to continue his career without a break.

Iga Swiatek was world No 1 when she also failed a doping test last year, eventually accepting a one-month suspension after she also proved her positive test was due to a contaminated substance.

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Halep’s long legal battles to overturn her initial ban took valuable months out of her career and when she finally had a chance to mount a comeback, he body was not willing to give her a second chance in the sport.

Some will argue that a positive doping test is conclusive evidence of a cheating athlete, but there is certainly some doubt over Halep’s story and the final verdict in her case confirmed as much.

With that in mind, Halep deserves to be remembered as the girl who emerged from Constanta in Romania and defied the odds by reaching the top coming from a nation that doesn’t have big funding programmes for their young tennis stars.

She overcame physical challenges at the start of her career and completed the journey to the top of the tennis ladder, with her win against the great Serena Williams in the 2019 Wimbledon final a stand-out moment.

Halep heads into the tennis afterlife having won a staggering $40,232,663 in prize money and achieving more than she could ever have imagined when she started her career.

That said, there is one part of her story that she wishes she could rewrite.

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2025-02-04T23:26:01Z