February 6, 2025
Her final match complete, Simona Halep let out a deep breath on Tuesday evening and a small smile began to creep across her face. She walked slowly toward the baseline seats and basked in applause from a gallery that included family and friends.
“I feel both sadness and joy — both emotions are running through me right now,” Halep said in heartfelt on-court remarks. “But I’m making this decision with a peaceful heart. My body can no longer sustain the effort it takes to get back to where I once was, and I know what that requires.
“That’s why I came here to Cluj — to play in front of you and to say goodbye.”
On Wednesday, she made it official: Halep is indeed retiring from the Hologic WTA Tour. Let the record show her last appearance was a 6-1, 6-1 defeat at the hands of Lucia Bronzetti in the first round of the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
For the seven years she was at her very best, Halep was a joy to watch on the tennis court. In an era dominated by big groundstrokes and bigger serves, the 5-foot-6 Halep — a fluid, dashing, defensive marvel — was a refreshing outlier.
This has been coming for quite some time for the 33-year-old Romanian. That she chose to end it by accepting a wild card in her home country seemed perfectly appropriate.
Halep, a versatile, all-court player, won two Grand Slam singles titles, the 2018 French Open, defeating Sloane Stephens in the final, and 2019 Wimbledon, featuring a memorable straight-sets final over Serena Williams. Halep is one of only 29 women in 50 years of the PIF WTA Rankings to reach No. 1 and finishes with 24 titles and more than $40 million in prize money. Perhaps most remarkably, for seven consecutive years, from 2014-20, she finished among the Top 5.
Halep tested positive at the 2022 US Open for the banned drug roxadustat, a substance favored by cyclists and distance runners to increase stamina. Halep steadfastly declared her innocence, saying she had “never knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance.” Still, she received a four-year ban from the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which was later reduced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“I’m at peace — I know I did nothing wrong in tennis,” Halep said. “I am clean, so it didn’t affect me mentally. It only took me out of the circuit — maybe that was intended, maybe that’s how the system works. But I’m here, I’m emotionally fine, and that’s what matters most.”
As it turned out, Halep was enjoying a resurgent season in 2022, winning the WTA 1000 event in Toronto — her last title — and returning to the Top 10 at the age of 30.
Her comeback began last march in Miami, where she lost to Paula Badosa in the first round. There were a pair of WTA 125 events, in Paris and Hong Kong, before a WTA main draw in Hong Kong when she was defeated by Yuan Yue. The Transylvania Open was her first (and only) match of 2025.
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