Romanian tennis player Simona Halep
has again come very close to the first position in the world’s ranking. Had she
qualified for the finals of the Miami tournament she would have outclassed
Naomi Osaka in the WTA ranking. Sadly, the Romanian conceded defeat in the
semifinals to Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic. For her performance in
Miami, Radio Romania International has designated Simona Halep Athlete of the Week.
Simona explained that her coming
back into shape was possible thanks to cooperation with her new coach Daniel
Dobre. He helped me a lot, his advice
proved to be very good in every match I played. The fact that I played so well
in such a short period of time was his merit and I am grateful that he came
along, Halep went on to say. The Romanian player said she had big expectations
regarding the match against France in the Fed Cup semifinals due in Rouen over
April 20th and 21st. I
am at home now ready to start training for the clay court. I cannot say we are favorites,
I believe the match is balanced and we stand chances to win. It will be
difficult but we’ve already played against them and we know how to play, Simona
said.
Simona is presently the world’s
number two player, but she held onto the first place for 64 weeks. She won 18
WTA tournaments, including a Grand Slam, last year in Roland Garros. Born on
September 27th 1991 in Constanta, southern Romania, she made her
debut in 2006, when she played her first games in the ITF circuit. She joined the
WTA Top 100 in 2010 and in August 2014 she made it to the world’s second place,
the highest position occupied by an athlete from Romania at the time. In
October 2017 she became the world’s first tennis player, which she lost briefly
in January 2018. She made it back to the first place in February last year,
keeping that position until after the Australian Open early this year.