Treasure Chest: Is the best yet to come for Simona Halep?

RELIEF. That was the word to describe the feeling that hit Simona Halep and her team on a warm Saturday afternoon in Paris.

The date was June 9, 2018. Down a set and 2–0 to Sloane Stephens in the Roland Garros final, Halep found a new gear, winning 12 of the next 15 games to take the match. Having lost her first three Grand Slam finals—all tight three-setters—Halep on this day had at last overcome doubt, and found deliverance.

“It’s a special moment,” Halep said that day. “I was dreaming for this moment since actually I started to play tennis.”

“The pressure and everything on her had taken a toll,” says Halep’s coach, Darren Cahill. “It culminated with that amazing experience in Paris.”

Since that victory, Halep has been far lighter, her view of the world shaped by many occurrences, including the pandemic. Before announcing last October that she had tested positive for COVID-19, Halep helped purchase medical supplies in Constanta, her birthplace in Romania, and Bucharest, her current residence.

At Roland Garros last fall, she noted that the pandemic “helped me a lot to change this inside myself, and I became very relaxed. I saw that the bigger problems are in normal life, not in our sport. So we have the privilege to play these beautiful and great tournaments. So I relaxed it in some way. I don’t really know how to explain.”

On the tennis front, that post-2018 lightness surely helped to win a second major title, when Halep played the match of her life to beat Serena Williams in the most recent Wimbledon final.

“She needed those four other finals to be comfortable enough to play a match like that at Wimbledon,” says Tracy Austin. “That was a dream day.”

“Winning big Grand Slams is fantastic,” says Halep’s compatriot and friend, three-time Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci. “She is a role model for the young generation to play sports . . . She is a Romanian treasure.”

Halep was unquestionably one of the favorites to take the title this year at Roland Garros—as well at Wimbledon, where she remains the defending champion—until a shock calf injury in Rome ruled her out of Paris and has continued to wreak havoc on her grass-court preparation, causing her to also withdraw from the inaugural event in Bad Homburg.

Through the highs and lows, she hasn't gone at it alone. Since early 2020, in addition to Cahill (who took a year off from their partnership in 2019), Halep has been coached by a fellow Romanian, Artemon “Arti” Apostu-Efremov. A former tour player, Apostu-Efremov has more than 15 years of coaching experience, his past charges including another Romanian, Irina-Camelia Begu.

With pro tennis on hiatus for five months in 2020, the two practiced extensively in Romania during that time.

“The fact that we have two voices is very, very helpful,” Cahill said at this year’s Australian Open.

Fit and forceful when playing her best tennis, the 5’6” Halep robs opponents of time and space.

“It’s going to be a long day at the office when you play Halep,” says Austin. “She won’t give you much. She’s going to play smart. She’s got good shot selection. She’ll keep you on the run. She’s accurate and hits the ball deep.”

Once you taste that success, the great players want more. She’s hungry to replicate. Darren Cahill

"She moves so well and can attack if you leave the ball short,” says Cahill. “She has multiple ways she can hurt you. There’s a physical and mental approach she brings. I guess it’s a little bit like Nadal."

Halep and Nadal also share a deep affinity for Roland Garros. But while Nadal’s Paris journey has seen him take one glorious upward step after another, Halep’s was far rockier.

At the age of 16, in 2008, she won the girls’ singles title. In the main draw, though, Halep labored for years, between 2010 and 2013 winning but a single match. Then came a run to the finals in 2014, the underdog Halep heavily testing Maria Sharapova before losing in three sets.

But while that effort was satisfying, massive frustration ensued three years later. Favored to win the final versus 47th-ranked Jelena Ostapenko, Halep led 6–4, 3–0. Even after Ostapenko leveled the match, Halep went up 3–1 in the third, only to lose the next five games. Nearly eight months after that brutal afternoon in Paris, Halep lost the 2018 Australian Open final to Caroline Wozniacki.

Following defeat, a smiling Halep said, “I’m still losing and I’m still waiting.”

The cumulative anguish of those high-stakes losses added yet another emotional element in the bubbling stew that so often defines Halep as a competitor. For as much damage as Halep can inflict on her opponents, there is no one she is harder on than herself.

“When the storm cloud rolls in, she has the propensity to make it bigger than it needs to be,” says tennis strategist Craig O’Shannessy. “She is not quick to forgive herself for an error.”

“It’s a different culture, different upbringing,” says Cahill of Halep’s tennis journey. “So many things go into forming a tennis player. As a coach, you need to coach through their eyes.”

Up against better players in the late stages of a tournament, Halep is vigilant, aware that she must apply pressure with court positioning and sharp groundstrokes. But in the first week of Slams, Halep has frequently played far more passively than desired, awaiting an error rather than forcing one. She becomes less driver, more passenger; and, soon enough, victim.

The emotional fallout during those challenging moments is not a pretty sight. Such was the case in the second round of this year’s Australian Open, when Halep found herself down 5–2 in the third set versus 72nd-ranked Alja Tomljanovic, before recovering to win the final five games.

“I was talking nonstop, and I was talking negative,” said Halep. “And I also have to apologize to my team because I was very negative with them also.”

Regardless of outcome, Halep never evades responsibility for her actions.

“She is honest to a fault,” Cahill says.

The pandemic-driven shifts in the tennis calendar last year made it possible for Halep to celebrate her 29th birthday in Paris last September. It was a promising autumn. Halep had spent the entire spring and summer in Europe, even skipping the US Open, in hopes of peaking at her beloved Roland Garros. Prior to arriving in Paris, Halep won clay-court events in Prague and Rome.

Seeded first, Halep avoided her customary early-stage struggles and dashed through her first three matches. The last of those victories came versus Amanda Anisimova, who’d beaten Halep at Roland Garros in 2019. On this occasion Halep was thoroughly in control, taking just 54 minutes to crush Anisimova, 6–0, 6–1.

But in the fourth round, Halep was beaten handily by unseeded Iga Swiatek, 6–1, 6–2—an upset at the time that soon enough proved plausible, given Swiatek’s dazzling run to the title.

“Of course it’s not easy take it,” Halep said after that defeat, “but I’m used to some tough moments in this career. So I will have a chocolate and I will be better tomorrow.”

An even sweeter moment for Halep came when she avenged the Swiatek loss at the same stage of this year’s Australian Open. Though Halep lost in the next round to Serena Williams, and has since devoted time to rehabbing a back, shoulder, and now calf injuries, there’s no doubting how eager she is to once again lift the trophy on Centre Court.

“Once you taste that success, the great players want more,” says Cahill. “She’s hungry to replicate.”

As Wimbledon nears, might the grass-court major now prove less stressful for Halep? In Paris, she has often borne the weight of expectation—and the comfort of familiarity. By contrast, Halep’s 2019 Wimbledon run was more of a surprise.

“I never thought that I’m able to win on grass with all these players that are very tall and serving with a lot of power,” Halep said after winning Wimbledon.

No matter what, count on a healthy Halep to showcase her trademark effort and engagement—and perhaps, also, an improved second serve and a few more trips to the net to take advantage of the openings she creates with her groundstrokes.

“With a player of her size, the intangibles have to be better,” says Austin. “The defense, the accuracy, the timing. She’s playing in an era of giants.”

The mix of having won both summer majors, along with the wisdom she’s gained during the pandemic, might lead to the most tranquil—and powerful—Halep we’ve ever seen.