Simona Halep announces retirement at 33 after 2 Grand Slam titles and return from ban

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep retires from tennis at 33 after injury-filled comeback and doping suspension.

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep announced her retirement from tennis at age 33 after a first-round loss at a tournament in her home country of Romania on Tuesday, ending an injury-filled comeback from a doping suspension.

Halep used a microphone to address the crowd in Cluj-napoca, Romania, following her 6-1, 6-1 loss to Lucia Bronzetti in the Transylvania Open.

That was the first match of the year for Halep, who reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings for the first time in 2017 but is now 870th and was given a wild-card invitation to play in Romania.

She had pulled out of qualifying for the Australian Open and a tuneup tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, last month because of pain in her knee and shoulder, the latest interruption of her career.

Halep once stood atop women's tennis, winning major singles trophies at Wimbledon in 2019 by beating Serena Williams in the final and at the French Open in 2018 by beating Sloane Stephens in the final.

She also was a three-time runner-up at Grand Slam tournaments — at the Australian Open in 2018 and the French Open in 2014 and 2017.

But her last appearance at a major event came at the 2022 U.S. Open. That was where Halep lost in the first round to Daria Snigur of Ukraine 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 and tested positive for the banned drug Roxadustat.