Simona Halep says she is not a cheater after Caroline Wozniacki brought into question the decision of the Miami Open to award the Romanian with a wildcard.
Halep returned to competition for the first time in 18 months on Tuesday at the WTA 1000 event where she took a set off Paula Badosa before losing 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, in the first round. It was the first time she played on the Tour since winning an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports concerning her doping suspension with her sentence being reduced from four years to nine months. It was concluded that Halep didn’t intentionally take a banned substance and the charges concerning abnormalities in her Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) were dismissed.
However, Wozniacki has voiced her opposition against awarding wild cards to players who have been found guilty of breaking anti-doping rules. Instead, they should be made to work their way back to the top.
“This is not directly at Simona, but if someone purposely cheats, if someone has tested positive for doping…I understand why a tournament wants a big star in the tournament, but it’s my personal belief, and it’s not a knock on anyone, but it’s my personal belief that I don’t think people should be awarded wildcards afterwards.” Wozniacki said after playing her first match in Miami.
“If you want to come back, and it’s been a mistake, I understand, you should work your way up from the bottom. That’s my personal opinion upon things.”
The remarks haven’t gone down too well with Halep who throughout her suspension insisted that she was innocent and would never intentionally take a prohibited substance.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t dope,” she told reporters.
“So it’s better if we read the decision from CAS that it was a contaminated supplement, it wasn’t doping. I never had something to do with doping. I never doped, so I’m not a cheater. Thank you to the tournament for giving me the wildcard and have the possibility to play in such a big tournament. It was great to be back.
“Only one person being negative about me is not that important because I have hundreds of people that are giving me love, so I will take that.”
Ironically Wozniacki’s stance on wild cards has been previously echoed by other players, including Halep herself. In 2017 the Romanian said she couldn’t support the decision of the Stuttgart Open tournament director to hand a pass to Maria Sharapova who was on the comeback from her ban. Sharapova was suspended for 15 months after testing positive for meldonium. At the time she said ‘It is not OK to help with a wild card the player that was banned for doping.’ Although Halep argues her case is different as it has been concluded that she took a cominated substance based on the ‘balance of probabilities.’
Now she is back on the Tour, the former world No.1 is keeping an open mind concerning her goals for the future.
“I’m going to wait and then I will plan.” She commented.
“Goals and plans in the future, it’s too early. I’m going home. I will need to practice harder because the level is very high these days, and then I will see.”
Halep has won 24 WTA titles so far in her career and earned more than $40M in prize money.
