Halep 'Not Happy' With Hong Kong Performance But Vows To 'Work Harder'

Simona Halep's challenging return to tennis continued with an opening-round loss at the Hong Kong Open, but the Romanian plans to work even harder to improve her level.

Halep's appearance at the WTA 250 tournament in Hong Kong was just her fourth event of 2024. The Romanian had been away from tennis since October 2022, before this season, due to a doping saga.

She initially received a four-year ban after testing positive for the banned substance roxadustat. The substance entered Halep's system due to a contaminated collagen given to her by Patrick Mouratoglou, the 33-year-old's coach at the time, and his team.

Halep repeatedly claimed she was innocent and appealed. The process dragged on for an extended period of time, with a verdict not reached until March of this year, 17 months after the initial ban was implemented.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport did not find Halep innocent but reduced the original ban from four years to nine months. She had already served nearly twice that amount just from waiting for the appeal to be heard.

Her first tournament back was at the Miami Open. Despite losing in three sets to Paula Badosa, Halep competed impressively and made a strong comeback to the sport.

However, a knee injury sustained at a WTA 125K tournament kept Halep on the sidelines for four months. In her first tournament back from that physical problem, she managed a victory in the opening round of another WTA 125K event in Hong Kong but lost heavily in the next round.

Halep's straight-sets defeat to Yue Yuan on Monday at the Hong Kong Open was the two-time Grand Slam champion's latest setback. Yuan has made significant improvements this season and won comfortably.

Former US Open semifinalist Coco Vandeweghe feels there are significant question marks about whether Halep will ever be able to return near the level that took her to the No. 1 ranking and titles at the French Open and Wimbledon.

But Halep was in no mood to panic after the match. The Romanian praised Yuan's performance and feels continuing to work hard and strengthen her body will help her improve.

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It will be interesting to see how much longer Halep decides to play in 2024. There are no tournaments at the WTA 250 level and above until 2025, aside from the WTA Finals, which starts on November 2nd in Riyadh.

However, WTA 125 tournaments will continue in November and December. Halep could choose to play at those events to get more matches under her belt. Tournaments at that level will undoubtedly give the 2019 Wimbledon champion any wild cards she wants.

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