Simona Halep is set to kick off her clay season next week after accepting a main draw wildcard into a WTA 125 tournament in Oeiras, via Marca.
In Oeiras, 32-year-old Halep will play her second tournament since being reinstated and allowed to return to pro tennis.
After winning her appeal in her doping ban case, Halep played her first match in a year and a half in Miami three weeks ago. Although Halep lost to Paula Badosa in three sets in her comeback match, her first tournament back still went pretty well as the former world No. 1 was competitive and showed that she could still compete at the highest level.
Now, Halep is set to kick off her clay season at in Oeiras, which is a WTA 125 tournament or as some prefer to call it “the WTA’s Challenger Tour.”
For two-time Grand Slam champion Halep, this will be the first time in many years that she will be taking part in a WTA 125 tournament. However, this shouldn’t be particularly surprising as Halep is just returning to tennis, and trying to get some action and rhythm in a lower-tie tournament makes sense for the Romanian.
Simona Halep © Getty Images Sport – Clive Brunskill
Also, this will mark Halep’s first appearance on clay since she lost to Zheng Qinwen in the 2022 second round.
Former #1 Simona Halep will continue her comeback next week… in Portugal.
She received a main draw wild card for the Oeiras WTA 125, her new coach told ‘MARCA’.https://t.co/WIqdemwHaY
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) April 8, 2024
After Oeiras, Halep will head to Madrid
Last week, it was announced that Halep was awarded a main draw wildcard into the opening clay WTA 1000 tournament of the year in Madrid.
Since Madrid is starting on April 22nd, the general expectation was that Halep would also try to play somewhere leading up to Madrid. Now that Halep has been announced for Oeiras, she is confirmed to at least get some action before competing on the big stage in Madrid.
Simona Halep © Getty Images Sport – Clive Brunskill
In Miami, Halep acknowledged that it was tough for her to set some clear goals right now because everything happened pretty quickly for her in the last month.
But one thing is clear, doing well in Oeiras and potentially winning the title would give a major boost of confidence to Halep ahead of Madrid and the remainder of the clay season.
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