Quote of the Day: Simona Halep previews an “interesting” Wimbledon women’s final

WATCH: Elena Rybakina defeats Simona Halep in the 2022 Wimbledon semifinals

Three years later, Simona Halep finally suffered a defeat at Wimbledon.

The 30-year-old Romanian gave all credit to her opponent Elena Rybakina, who snapped her 12-match All England Club winning streak in emphatic style. Halep, the 2019 champion, struggled with her serve and couldn't hit through the powerful Kazakh in a 6-3, 6-3 defeat.

Rybakina advanced to her first Wimbledon final, where she’ll face Ons Jabeur in a historic first meeting. But although she handed Halep—who hadn’t dropped a set all tournament long—a lopsided loss, that doesn’t make the 23-year-old the runaway favorite.

In her post-match press conference, Halep broke down Rybakina and Jabeur’s clash of styles and previewed an “interesting” Wimbledon women’s final—which Halep says she’ll definitely be tuning into.

Q. You're one of the smartest players on tour. How do you assess Saturday's final?

SIMONA HALEP: Interesting. Yeah, now [that] I'm thinking about it, it's not easy to answer because I don't know Rybakina is going to respond to Jabeur's game. It's changing the rhythm, it's cutting the rhythm with many slices. Jabeur, she's serving well.

It's going to be interesting. I cannot say that Rybakina can keep this level. But probably she would if she really feels confident.

So it's going to be interesting to work, and I will watch it.

It’s a pretty informed assessment from Halep, who now owns a 2-1 WTA head-to-head lead over both Rybakina and Jabeur after Thursday’s defeat. And she gets points for being a true fan of the sport at heart—most players would just as well forget a tournament exists once they’ve exited it, not tune into the final they missed out on.

There’s still plenty for the former world No. 1 to be proud of in her third semifinal run at Wimbledon, especially considering what she had to overcome to get here. Since 2019, Halep suffered a serious calf injury, had to miss this tournament in 2021, dropped out of the WTA Top 10 and even considered retiring.

Now, after scoring confident wins over Amanda Anisimova and Paula Badosa on her way to her first Grand Slam semifinal since 2020, Simo is back and better than ever.

“I have confidence because I showed myself that I can play good tennis,” she said. “But, yeah today probably was a little bit too much.

“I take it as it is, and I'm looking forward to work the same way. I'm sure that it's going to be better the next week.”