© Getty Images Sport – Shaun Botterill
Simona Halep seemed to respond to Serena Williams’ shade, saying someone told her that some players “hate me because I beat them.” Last week, an independent tribunal handed Halep a four-year doping ban from tennis.
Hours later, Williams made an X post that many felt was a shot at Halep. In 2019, Halep defeated Williams 6-2 6-2 in the Wimbledon final. Williams never won the Wimbledon final again and she finished with seven Wimbledon titles.
“8 is a better number,” Williams wrote to X following the news that Halep had received a four-year doping ban.
Halep answered Williams’ shade
“I think everyone has the right to judge me because the tribunal has decided that I am guilty here.
Someone told me today that those players hate me because I beat them,” Halep told Front Office Sports.
Meanwhile, Halep emphasized that she did not accept the decision of the independent tribunal.
Last week, Halep issued a lengthy statement, in which she defended herself and announced that she was taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). “My representatives and I presented ITIA and the tribunal with compelling evidence in support of my defense, including many legitimate questions about the conclusions reached in my Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) test.
While I am grateful to finally have a result after many unreasonable delays and a sense of living in purgatory for over a year, I am shocked and disappointed by their decision. I believe in a clean sport and in almost two decades as a professional tennis player, through hundreds of tournaments and two Grand Slam titles, I took 200 blood and urine tests to check the banned substances – everything is clean, until August 29, 2022,” Halep said in a statement last week.