Athlete of the Week

Simona Halep remains Romania's highest-ranking tennis player. On Monday she made a comeback among the world's first 20 players, with a 7 position jump currently placing her on the 19th position. That was possible thanks to the performance she obtained at WTA 1000 in Indian Wells, where she made it to the semifinals. For her latest Californian performance, Radio Romania International has designated Halep Athlete of the Week.

At Indian Wells, Simona entered directly into the second round and played Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova whom she defeated 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. In the third round she secured a two-set win against Cori Gauff of the USA, 6-3, 6-4. In the round of 16, she clinched a 6-1, 6-4 win against her compatriot Sorana Cîrstea and defeated Croatian player Petra Martic in the quarterfinals, 6-1, 6-1. It was third-seeded Iga Świątek of Poland who stopped Halep in her tracks in the semifinals with a 7-6, 6-4 win. The Polish player eventually won the tournament after a two-set win 6-4, 6-1 against Maria Sakkari of Greece.

Simona Halep was born on 27th September 1991, in Constanţa, south-eastern Romania and made her debut in international competitions in 2006, when she played her first games in the ITF tournament. In 2010, she became part of Top 100 and four years later she made it to the second position in the world ranking, which at that time was the best performance obtained by a Romanian tennis player. Three years later, in October 2017, she became the world's best tennis player, a position she left in January 2018. She made a comeback to that position that year in February and kept it until early 2019 after the Australian Open. She topped the WTA ranking for 64 weeks and her prize closet includes two Grand Slam trophies, Roland Garros in 2018 and Wimbledon 2019.

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