By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday August 8, 2021
The Romanian makes her return to competitive tennis with low expectations.
Photo Source: AP
Simona Halep is thrilled to be back in action after missing three months due to a calf injury. The two-time major champion, a former World No.1 who was forced out of Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and the Olympics this year, says she has set a new goal this summer – to get back to the Top-10.
Halep, who will fall out of the WTA’s Top-10 on Monday (she holds the WTA's 8th longest streak of consecutive weeks in the Top-10 at 373), says she is patient as she returns to tour, but also eager to get back where she knows she belongs.
"It's something huge, now that I have time to think and I have time to see what I did. It's huge and I am proud, I can say, that I was able to actually stay so long in the Top-10,” she said during media hour at the National Bank Open in Montreal. "Unfortunately the injury got me out. I was not able to play for three month, so I didn't have a chance to give my best to stay in the Top-10. I'm not sad, I'm not upset, I'm not disappointed I just take it as a new challenge. It's going to be my new challenge for the next period, to come back to the Top-10."
Halep, who suffered a tear in her left calf while playing at Rome, is slowly working her way back into the groove.
She told reporters her main goal is to win her first match (she will face either Danielle Collins or Jil Teichmann in round 2, after a bye).
"First of all I have to be able to play the first month, because I come from a long period of injury - about three months I didn't have a match, so I'm not thinking about quarter-finals or something else, because it's really tough to expect something of this tournament,” she said. “I just want to be healthy and give my best on court and to win the first match. If that is going to happen then I will think about the next one."
Halep has been in Canada for a few days, playing practice matches and preparing for the tournament that she won the title at in 2016 and 2018.
"It felt like I stayed away two years, honestly, because to get the rhythm back, official practice sets with the players, it was really tough at the beginning, but now I have a few days already, and I'm getting better, but still I'm far from my level,” she said. "I don't expect anything big at this tournament, and this period, because it was first time when I stayed so much with an injury and it was so difficult because I was scared that it's going to happen again, so that's why maybe I look refreshed because I was home for three months and I enjoyed the time, I felt like nothing matters anymore, just to recover from injury."