Initially mooted by Romanian media to be playing Rouen Open next week alongside Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep will go down a different route in the form of a WTA 125 in Oeiras, Portugal instead.
Halep withdrew from this week’s Billie Jean King Cup due to medical reasons and won’t head to Romania to play Ukraine. But after being rumoured to be playing Rouen, she will instead go down the route that Elina Svitolina did in her comeback.
Svitolina played this very tournament last year before her excellent comeback of the year. It also sees Caroline Wozniacki get her wish of Halep restarting her career at a lower level after comments surrounding wildcards for those who have doped.
This started a war of words with both also receiving wildcards for Madrid. It was heightened mainly due to Halep making comments about Maria Sharapova getting similar treatment for her ban to which the Romanian reiterated that she didn’t intentionally dope.
Confirmed by her coach Carlos Martinez as per MARCA, she will play between April 15-21 and has been training in Bucharest as of late as she aims to get ready for the clay court season.