'Icon In Her Country, I Have Nothing But Respect For Her': Banned Halep Praised By Former Coach

Monday, 18 September 2023 at 16:00

bySebastian Dahlman

Very few people stood by Simona Halep as publicly as Darren Cahill during her doping scandal and he still has only words of praise for the player.

Halep's career was one that developed over the years and saw her become one of the most popular tennis players on the WTA Tour. She's a Grand Slam champion, a former world number one, and certainly one whose career was worthy of the Tennis Hall Of Fame.

Nowadays, that claim looks ludicrous, as she was banned from competing due to a breach of anti-doping rules. That's a very simplified view of a very complex matter, but she's currently banned from the sport due to two separate violations of the anti-doping rules.

Her reputation took a huge hit, even before and after this ruling. She will challenge the ruling in the Court of Arbitration of Sport, so her suspension might be reversed; however, her reputation will likely never recover to its previous state.

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None of this impacted how Cahill sees Halep as somebody who used to coach her. He stood by her through all of this and still has only words of praise for the Romanian. He shared them during an appearance on the Advantage Connors Podcast.

An amazing lady with 20 million in Romania who basically idolizes her. She is an icon in the country and feeling and sensing that pressure from that country to have a breakthrough and Grand Slam success, be the No. 1 player in the world, and find a way to put that to one side and accomplish that. I have nothing but respect for her.

So I enjoyed every piece of those years that we spent together. She backed it up in 2019 by winning the Wimbledon final and playing incredibly well through the semis and final. I think the best match she ever played was against Serena (Williams) in that final.