Simona Halep responds to Serena Williams' shade after doping ban

09/18/2023 12:21 PM

Simona Halep has seemingly responded to Serena Williams' shade, saying she was told by someone that some players are "hating on me because I beat them." Last week, the independent tribunal handed Halep a four-year doping ban from tennis. A couple of hours later, Williams made a post on X that many felt was a shot at Halep. In 2019, Halep beat Williams 6-2 6-2 in the Wimbledon final. Williams never again made the final at Wimbledon and she finished with seven Wimbledon titles. “8 is a better number," Williams wrote on X after the news of Halep receiving a four-year doping ban.

“I think everyone has the right to judge me because the tribunal decided that I have the fault here. Someone told me today that those players who are hating on me because I beat them," Halep told Front Office Sports.

Meanwhile, Halep has highlighted that she is not accepting the decision of the independent tribunal. Last week, Halep issued a lengthy statement, in which she defended herself and announced she was taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). "My representatives and I presented the ITIA and the tribunal with compelling evidence in support of my defense, including multiple legitimate questions regarding the conclusions reached around my Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) testing. While I am grateful to finally have an outcome following numerous unfounded delays and a feeling of living in purgatory for over a year, I am both 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 have taken 200 blood and urine tests to check for prohibited substances – all of which have been clean, until August 29, 2022," Halep said in a statement last week.