Simona Halep says she absolutely doesn't have any hard feelings toward tennis as a game despite going through the toughest and most challenging period of her career after being handed a doping ban that she strongly rejected.
When the ITIA announced in October 2022 that the former world No. 1 tested positive for trimetazidine, the former world No. 1 issued a lengthy statement in which she strongly denied that she would ever do anything illegal. From Day 1, the Romanian insisted that contamination was to blame for the banned substance entering her body.
While Halep did her best to plead her case, the ITIA still proceeded to issue her a four-year ban from tennis. However, in the end, she she proved her claims were right after the CAS judges confirmed that she was a victim of contamination of reduced her suspension from four years to nine months.
Throughout the process, Halep didn't hide that her mental was very negatively impacted by the doping case. In one interview, the Romanian even said that she felt like "a truck hit me."
Halep: Tennis did nothing wrong to me and had nothing to do with the doping case
“Tennis did nothing to me, nothing wrong. It did only good things. What happened, it was just, for me, without doing any mistakes. So everything was proved. Tennis has nothing to do with that and I still keep the passion for it," the 34-year-old told The National.
After returning to action in March 2024 and taking part in just five tournaments, Halep ended her career due to a serious knee injury. Halep finished her career with 24 titles – of which two came at the Grand Slam stage – and spent a total of 64 weeks at the world No. 1 spot.
“I have no regrets and every mistake I did, I assume it and I accept it. And all the good things that I did, I'm proud of. I can say I'm proud of many things, but the main thing is the way I managed all the failures and the successes," Halep said.
