Major talent Halep leaves behind a tarnished legacy

After the best hour of tennis she ever played, Simona Halep dropped to her knees and beamed at her box in disbelief.

- KIERAN JACKSON

The Romanian had just bamboozled and outclassed the greatest female tennis player in the modern game in the 2019 Wimbledon final, in doing so claiming her second grand slam title. She hit just three unforced errors in the entire match and a sentence rarely uttered came to mind: Serena Williams was powerless.

It felt like a seismic moment, not just for Halep but for women’s tennis and the next generation behind the Williams sisters. In her prime years at 27, Halep reclaimed her world No 1 ranking and her rise seemed limitless. But nearly six years on, as Halep waved goodbye to professional tennis on Tuesday after a 6-1 6-1 thrashing by world No 72 Lucia Bronzetti at her home tournament, her legacy is a complicated one.

“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,” Halep said, as she announced her decision to retire on court at the Transylvania Open. “Where I probably was, it’s very hard to get there and I know what it means to get there. It’s a beautiful thing. I became world No 1, 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.”

Halep is speaking after a tempestuous two-and-a-half years which was spent mostly away from the tennis court. In October 2022, the Romanian was provisionally suspended by the International Tennis Integrity Agency after testing positive for the banned substance Roxadustat, the blood-boosting anaemia drug, at the 2022 US Open.