Romanian tennis player Simona Halep

Tennis player Simona Halep, the Romanian athlete with the greatest performances in the last year, has been nominated to the title of the best WTA player in March, along with American Serena Williams and Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro.

Steliu Lambru, 07.04.2015, 14:26

Tennis player Simona Halep, the Romanian athlete with the greatest performances in the last year, has been nominated to the title of the best WTA player in March, along with American Serena Williams and Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro. Halep is number 3 seed in the female standings and was voted as the best player in February in the poll posted on the WTA site.

In the second half of March, Simona Halep won the Indian Wells tournament in the Premier Mandatory category. In the final, she defeated Spanish Carla Suarez Navarro 2-6, 7-5, 6-4. In the Miami tournament, also in the Premier Mandatory category, Simona Halep lost to world leader Serena Williams 2-6, 6-4, 5-7 in the semifinals. After the match, Serena Williams said, quoted by the WTA site: “Simona’s play was extraordinary. She is so young and I enjoy seeing her play. Actually, I am a fan of hers.”

For her performances in the two American tournaments, Radio Romania International has designated Simona Halep the Athlete of the Week. Simona Halep was born in the Black Sea port-town of Constanta on September 27th 1991. She played her first matches in the ITF circuit in 2006. In 2010, she was one of the 100 top female players in the WTA ranking. She was the great revelation in 2013, when she had 53 victories and only 17 defeats, winning six WTA tournaments, in Nurnberg, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Budapest, New Haven, Moscow and Sofia. In 2014, Simona Halep won the Doha and Bucharest tournaments and was finalist in Roland Garros and Madrid. Last August, she was seeded 2nd in the world standings, the highest position ever held by a Romanian female tennis player. At the end of 2014, she ranked third in the WTA ranking.

In 2015, Simona Halep won the Shenzhen tournament in China and the Dubai tournament, the latter bringing her 456,000 dollars in prize money. She has so far won 22 matches and lost two.