When Simona Halep finished her first match at the Rogers Cup in Toronto earlier in August, she was asked how it felt to be back on the court after not touching a racquet for two weeks.
Halep smiled and said, in her deadpan way, “Well, it felt like I didn’t play for two weeks.”
It looked like it, too. The two-time Grand Slam champion had just survived three long, up-and-down sets to eke out a victory over a player ranked outside the Top 50. But Halep didn’t look too worried. She knew there had been extenuating circumstances—the kind that most players can only dream about.
The previous month had been a joyous whirlwind for the Romanian. At Wimbledon, she had played the best tennis of her career on her least favorite surface—grass—to win her second major title. Not only that, she had punctuated her fortnight with a nearly flawless, 56-minute win over Serena Williams in the final.
“I’m very sure that was the best match of my life,” Halep said, after committing just three unforced errors against the Open era’s most prolific Grand Slam champion. The win capped a tournament in which this famously volatile player had steadied her emotions and played with controlled, sustained intensity.
The previous year, when she won her first major at Roland Garros, Halep had been feted like a conquering hero in her home country—and the celebration was even grander this time. Thirty-thousand people gathered in Bucharest’s largest arena to see the president hand Halep the country’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the Star of Romania.
It was a head-spinning time for Halep, and one that her body couldn’t quite recover from. She ended up retiring in the quarterfinals in Toronto with Achilles pain.
Still, Halep’s Wimbledon triumph puts her at the top of the list of contenders to win the 2019 US Open. The most important question for the women’s draw may be: Has Halep, at 27, turned a corner for good?
“I’m a different person,” Halep said at Wimbledon. “Everything changed.”
What changed, first of all, was her attitude toward grass, finally feeling comfortable on the surface. That confidence traveled upward, from her feet to her shots to her mindset. Halep said she felt “chill,” but watching her ease at Wimbledon brought to mind another “ch” word: “channeled.”
“I always play well when I have emotions,” Halep said after beating Williams. “I don’t try to ignore them, or I don’t try to fight them. That’s why I was able to do my best match.”
Halep has turned over new leaves before. But this time ESPN commentator Mary Joe Fernández noted how far she’s come already.
“The most impressive thing isn’t the work she’s put in on the court, it’s the work she’s put in off the court, mentally,” Fernandez said at Wimbledon. “She gets upset, but she bounces back faster. Her game translates to every surface. We saw her win on grass, she can definitely win on hard courts.”
For Halep, winning Wimbledon meant learning to play on a surface that she didn't love. At the US Open, she’ll face a different challenge: Winning a tournament that many think she should have won before. Halep has reached the finals of the other three Grand Slams, but despite her comfort on hard courts, she has only reached the semifinals at Flushing Meadows once, in 2015.
But that was before Halep had won a major title and learned how well she could play on big stages. Her Wimbledon win was so convincing, it felt like the beginning of a second career where the sky's the limit. And if her Achilles lets her, she sounds eager to start it.
“I feel I’m at the highest level for sure,” Halep said this summer, “but I’m feeling also that I can improve some things. I’m still motivated. I’m looking forward already to the next tournaments and the next challenges that I have.”
