Simona Halep has announced her immediate retirement from tennis at the age of 33 after losing in the first round of the Cluj Open in Romania.
Halep, who is a former French Open and Wimbledon champion, announced her decision after suffering a 6-1, 6-1, loss to Lucia Bronzetti on Tuesday. In recent days there had been speculation that she was pondering stepping away from the sport but it wasn’t expected to be right away. Earlier this week, she told the media that she was coping with ‘injuries that can’t fully heal’ and she just wanted to enjoy her time in Cluj.
“It’s a bit hard to talk, first of all, I want to thank you. This court is my home, I have always received a lot of love here. Your energy has always been what filled my soul. It’s a special emotion! It was evident today that I could barely breathe on the court,” sportmedia.ro quoted Halep as saying on court.
“From a sports point of view, I am a very fulfilled person. What I have achieved, I can’t even say that I dreamed of it when I was a child.
“I don’t know if it’s with sadness or joy, and this decision is with a clear conscience. My body can’t handle it anymore. That’s why I wanted to come here, to play, to say goodbye on the tennis court. Even though I didn’t play very well.
“Who knows if I will come back, but for now, it’s the last time I played here. I don’t want to cry.
“Life goes on after tennis. To be competitive it requires much more, and at this moment, it’s no longer possible.
“My parents did everything for me to reach where I want. (…) Thank you again, mom and dad! I have been lucky! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!.”
Throughout her career, Halep has been a prominent figure in women’s tennis. She has won 24 WTA titles and reached the final of another 18 events. Among her trophy collection are two major trophies and nine WTA 1000 titles. She has spent a total of 64 weeks as world world No.1 which is a longer stint than players such as Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Venus Williams.
In recent years, Halep’s career has been derailed by her suspension from the sport for violating anti-doping rules. She failed a drugs test during the 2022 US Open after testing positive for the anti-anemia drug roxadustat which is used to stimulate red blood cells in the body. Then in May 2023, she was hit with a second charge by the ITIA for irregularities in her athlete biological passport (ABP). She was subsequently handed a four-year ban by a panel that concluded she intentionally doped.
The Romanian challenged the suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport who reduced her sentence substantially to nine months. CAS ruled that “on the balance of probabilities” she had not taken roxadustat intentionally and her ABP charge was dismissed. However, Halep was found to have some level of fault or negligence for her violations due to not ‘exercising sufficient care’ when using the contaminated Keto MCT supplement.
“I am at peace, I know I have done nothing wrong in relation to tennis. I just want to rest, I am an emotionally exhausted professional tennis player,” she later told reporters during a press conference.
“I want to let life surprise me. I don’t know what will happen in life, but it’s a ‘Goodbye’ from tennis, here in Cluj, at home. I understand that it is the right decision, that if you don’t train every day, you can’t cope. I have no regrets, we look ahead, maybe this is how it was meant to be.”
Halep, who has always denied any wrongdoing, was unable to return to the top of the game after winning her appeal. Playing only a handful of tournaments due to injury setbacks and failing to win back-to-back matches at any of them.
Nevertheless, she is her country’s most successful female player in history and has set various milestones throughout her career. These include becoming the first Romanian woman to win Wimbledon, reach world No.1 and earn more than $40M in prize money.
