The Eastbourne Interview: With Wimbledon near, Halep makes grass debut

Simona Halep kicks off her grass-court season this week in Eastbourne. The sixth-seeded Romanian is aiming to get her feet on the green turf before heading to the 2019 edition of Wimbledon, which begins next week.

"It's always tough to think about the result on grass because you never know what to expect," Halep told Tennis Channel's global correspondent Prakash Amritraj. "But I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm able to play, and hopefully and hopefully I can win some matches.

The former No. 1, who's also playing doubles this week, doesn't normally play a tune-up tournament a week before a Slam, but chose to play Eastbourne due to a lackluster clay-court swing.

"The reason was that I didn't have the best clay-court season as last year.," she said. "And I decided to have some matches before Wimbledon to get used to the surface and to have some matches."