Simona Halep (33 years old) has retired from tennis and spoke about the moment when she decided it was time to give up her professional career.
Simona played her last career match at the Transylvania Open in Romania and was decisively defeated by Lucia Bronzetti (1-6, 1-6), and at the end of the match in Cluj-Napoca, she announced her retirement.
Our athlete revealed the moment when she decided to leave behind the impressive career she had built in the world of tennis.
Halep said she understood she needed to give up tennis when she realized that her knee injury was serious and required surgery to fully recover. Simona revealed that one of her goals was to never have to undergo surgery to continue her career at a high level.
"When I understood that the knee injury was serious and that I needed cartilage implant. And they told me that recovery takes a year, a year and a half, and there was no guarantee that I would be able to perform as before. My career goal was not to reach the point of needing surgery.
To play as much as possible, but not to have surgery, because once you have surgery, nothing is the same. And look, I managed to avoid it, there was no need to push myself further, to break something. For what, after all?" Simona Halep declared, according to treizecizero.ro.
Impressive Career for Simona Halep
Simona Halep had an impressive tennis career. She won two Grand Slam titles, Roland Garros 2018 and Wimbledon 2019, played in three other finals (two at Roland Garros and one at the Australian Open). Our athlete held the top spot in the WTA ranking for 64 weeks.
In 2022, Simona Halep tested positive for Roxadustat after a match in the first round of the US Open against Daria Snigur on August 29. Since then, a tough period began for Simona. ITIA initially imposed a four-year suspension on the Romanian, reduced to just nine months by TAS.
Halep returned to tennis in March 2024, after a year and a half on the sidelines, provisionally suspended, awaiting the ITIA verdict. Since then, Simona Halep has played six matches and won only one, against Arina Rodionova in Hong Kong in October 2024.