Athlete of the Week

The WTA 1000 women's tennis tournament in Madrid, is the first major clay tournament of the summer season. This year's competition boasts 6,575,560 euros in prize money and the winner will walk away with over one million euros and 1,000 WTA points. The tournament has reached the round of 16 now and we already know a couple of players qualified for the quarters. Among them there is also Romanian Simona Halep who managed an excellent show in Madrid.

The remarkable performance she obtained in Madrid is all the more so valuable as Simona came after a recovery recess, from the injury she suffered at Indian Wells in March. For the excellent show she has so far put up in Madrid, Radio Romania International has designated Simona Halep the Athlete of the Week.

In Madrid, Simona played her first game against Shuai Zhang of China, whom she defeated in two sets 6-2, 6-3. Then she was up against two-seeded Paula Bados of Spain whom she defeated 6-3, 6-1. In the eight finals, Halep played 14th-seeded Cori Gauff of the USA in a balanced game, which the Romanian eventually won 6-4, 6-4. In the quarter finals, Simona will be up on Wednesday against Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, who is also the odds-on favourite.

Simona Halep was born on September 27, 1991, in Constanţa, south-eastern Romania. She made her debut in major tennis competitions in 2006, when she played her first matches in ITF tournaments. In 2010 she entered the world's top 100 and in August 2014 she made it for the first time to the second position in the world's ranking, the highest position ever occupied by a Romanian athlete.

Three years later, in October 2017, she topped the ranking, a position she left in January 2008. She made a comeback in the same year a month later and remained a world leader until the beginning of 2019, after the Australian Open. Halep topped the WTA ranking for 64 weeks and her prize closet includes two Grand Slam titles, in Roland Garros in 2018 and in Wimbledon a year later.