MIAMI – Simona Halep returned to tennis on March 19, losing to Spaniard Paula Badosa at the Miami Open and then hit back at Caroline Wozniacki after the Dane criticised the decision to give her a wild card into the tournament.

Halep, a former world No. 1, was given a warm welcome by the Miami crowd before fading as she lost 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 in her first match since the 2022 US Open.

But while the Romanian flags and chants of her name showed that she retains plenty of support after having her doping ban reduced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on March 5, Wozniacki questioned the way Halep was allowed into the tournament.

“This is not directly at Simona, but if someone purposely cheats, if someone has tested positive for doping... I understand why a tournament wants a big star in the tournament, but it’s my personal belief, and it’s not a knock on anyone, but it’s my personal belief that I don’t think people should be awarded wild cards afterwards,” said the 2018 Australian Open champion.

“If you want to come back, and it’s been a mistake, I understand, but you should work your way up from the bottom... Simona got her suspension reduced. It wasn’t a clearance, it was a reduced sentence.”

Asked about Wozniacki’s comments, Halep said she did not understand her motivation.

“Why did she say that? I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t dope,” the 32-year-old insisted. “So it’s better if we read the decision from CAS that it was a contaminated supplement, it wasn’t doping. I never had something to do with doping.

“Thank you to the tournament for giving me the wild card. Only one person being negative about me is not that important because I have hundreds of people that are giving me love, so I will take that.”

Halep looked like her old self in the opening set, cheered on by a small but passionate crowd, including many of her compatriots, but she struggled later in the near two-hour contest.

There were the familiar chants of “Si-Mon-ah, Si-Mon-Ah” as she broke to go 4-1 up in the first set and the fist pump showed the level of motivation after her lengthy, enforced absence.

But she needed treatment to her shoulder during the second set and she lost the accuracy of her serve while looking increasingly tired.

Despite her loss, she was upbeat about her first match after such a long absence from the court.

“It felt really good. I had emotions, but positive emotions,” Halep said. “To see the crowd supporting me gave me a lot of energy. The level of tennis was pretty good. Unexpected, I think. I think I did a good job today. So I’m happy with the first match coming back.”

Her career had been on hold since Oct 7, 2022, the date of the start of her provisional suspension after testing positive for roxadustat at that year’s US Open.

The 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon champion was then caught up in a second affair, this time “irregularities” in the data of her biological passport.

She was handed a four-year ban by the International Tennis Integrity Agency which would have effectively ended her career.

Halep appealed to CAS in February, arguing her positive test for roxadustat – used to treat anaemia and banned as a blood doping agent – was the result of a tainted supplement.

CAS determined that she had “established, on the balance of probabilities” that the banned substance did come from the contaminated product and her violations were therefore “not intentional”. Her ban was reduced to nine months, which expired last July.

Halep will be back on court again sooner rather than later but for now, Badosa moved into the second round of the Miami Open and set up what is sure to be an emotion-packed match with Aryna Sabalenka.

Sabalenka’s boyfriend, Belarusian former pro ice hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, died on March 18 at the age of 42 in what police said was an “apparent suicide”. AFP, REUTERS