Halep awful run after ban continues in Hong Kong

Simona Halep back and forth run after return from suspension continued as she lost to Yuan Yue who came from 3-0 down in the second set to defeat former World No.1 in Hong Kong.

The 26-year-old chinese Yuan fired 22 winners and committed only 12 unforced errors as she overpowered the former World No.1 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour and 22 minutes in the first round of the Hong Kong Tennis Open on Monday.

In her on-court interview afterwards, she admitted that she had been “nervous” ahead of the match, but reminded herself that she had to “keep going to play to win this.” Yuan Yue said after setting up a second-round meeting with either Nao Hibino or lucky loser Lu Jia-Jing.

Halep made her return from a doping suspension of nine months — reduced from an original four years — in Miami in March, losing to Paula Badosa in the first round. However, a left knee injury forced her to retire against McCartney Kessler in the first round of the Paris WTA 125 event in May and sidelined her for another four months.

Four weeks ago, Halep notched her first match win since 2022 in the Hong Kong WTA 125 tournament in three sets against Arina Rodionova before falling 6-2, 6-1 to Anna Blinkova in the second round. On the same courts for this week’s WTA 250 event, playing her fourth tournament and fifth match of the year, she was unable to replicate the result against No.45-ranked Yuan.

Afterwards, Halep said that the bright side of her defeat was in her improvement.

“Was not bad at all, but the opponent was playing really well and she had confidence,” she said. “I would say I’m not happy with the way I played, but it’s much better than previous matches so I’m just taking the positives. Body is tired, but it’s normal because I had such a long break. It’s better than last time, so I take it as a positive.”

Looking ahead, Halep was unsure of her 2025 schedule, but had a firm goal for the off-season.

“[The schedule] depends on wild cards, doesn’t depend on me,” she said. “About the off-season, I just want to woork harder than I did these few weeks, because I really need a stronger body to perform at this level.”