Romanian professional tennis player Simona Halep has gone toe-to-toe with some of the biggest racket holders of her time and emerged as one of the most successful players of this decade. She ranked world number one in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, eleventh most in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings. She holds two Grand Slam singles titles (the 2018 French Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships), and from January 2014 to August 2021 ranked in the top 10 for 373 consecutive weeks, the eighth-longest streak in WTA history. At no point during this time did she dip below number four in the world.
Halep, who was born in 1991 in Constanța, Romania, has amassed a following all over the world and is a celebrated icon in her home country, which is not known for producing many professional tennis players. Her father, who regretted not having the parental support and financial backing to pursue his own sports dreams, zealously supported his children’s athletic endeavors. Halep first picked up a tennis racket at age four, and by the time she was a teenager was partly sponsored by Corneliu Idu, the owner of the leading tennis club in Constanța. She moved away from her family to Bucharest to train full time at just 16.
In her junior career, Halep captured the French Open championship and was a former world number one. She went pro in 2006, and by 2011 was playing almost exclusively WTA Tour events. She won her first six WTA titles all in the same year in 2013, and was the first to do so since Steffi Graf in 1986. She was named the WTA Most Popular Player of the Year in 2014 and 2015, as well as the WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
While there have been many ups for Halep, her life is not without downs. Currently provisionally suspended from tennis after testing positive for low levels of the prohibited substance Roxadustat, she has requested an emergency hearing with the International Tennis Integrity Agency. The tides appear to be turning in her favor as she has presented lab reports of her contaminated nutritional supplements that have unlabeled amounts of the substance.
“I will fight until the end to prove that I have never knowingly took any prohibited substance and I have faith that sooner or later, the truth will come out,” she said in a public statement.