Following a lengthy but successful legal battle, former Grand Slam champion Simona Halep makes her return to the WTA Tour on Tuesday, facing Paula Badosa in the first round of the Miami Open.
The Romanian was handed a wild card for the Masters tournament, while Badosa enters with a protected ranking, and both women are vying to meet second seed Aryna Sabalenka in round two.
Match preview
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In the wake of a shock first-round US Open exit to Daria Snigur in 2022, former world number one and two-time major winner Halep was found to have the banned substance roxadustat in her system, leading to a devastating four-year suspension from the sport.
The 32-year-old would have been unable to compete again until 2026 had the punishment been upheld, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport accepted that a contaminated substance was the cause of the positive test and reduced her suspension from four years to just nine months.
Taking into account the suspended time she had already served, Halep - who also had a charge relating to her biological passport dismissed - was given the green light for an immediate return to tennis and accepted a Miami Open wild card after prevailing with her appeal.
The Romanian has already come up trumps in nine Masters tournaments during her glittering career, but she has traditionally struggled to make waves at the Miami Open, which is only one of two WTA 1000 tournaments that she has played in but never made the final - the other being the Wuhan Open.
Halep's best results in Miami so far have been semi-final exits in 2015 and 2019, and while only one of her last 30 Masters tournaments has seen her fall to defeat in the first round - to Caroline Garcia at the 2022 Qatar Open - the 32-year-old will be something of an unknown quantity after a 19-month absence.
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However, the Romanian's upcoming foe Badosa is also getting back into the swing of things on the WTA Tour, having prematurely ended her 2023 season after retiring in her Wimbledon second-round match with Marta Kostyuk due to a troublesome stress fracture.
That issue forced the Spaniard to sit out the remainder of the calendar year, but the prolonged recuperation period allowed her to make her return to the WTA Tour Down Under, getting as far as round three at the 2024 Australian Open before being bested by Amanda Anisimova.
Badosa's fitness woes have begun to rear their ugly heads once more, though, as either side of a second-round exit to Leylah Fernandez at the Qatar Open, the 26-year-old called it quits at both the Thailand Open and last month's Dubai Open; the latter retirement left her in tears on the court.
Badosa's latest setback will seemingly not stop her from pitting her wits against Halep, though, as the world number 80 - formerly as high as second in 2022 - seeks a second Masters triumph after coming up trumps at the 2021 Indian Wells Masters.
The Spaniard subsequently reached the quarter-finals of the 2022 Miami Open - her best result at the tournament to date - but in a familiar and frustrating tale, her last-eight tie with Jessica Pegula ended in retirement at 4-1 down, and she was eliminated by Elena Rybakina in round three last year.
Head To Head
Wimbledon (2022) - Fourth round: Halep wins 6-1 6-2
Madrid Open (2022) - Second round: Halep wins 6-3 6-1
Both of Halep and Badosa's previous meetings on the WTA Tour came during the 2022 season at the Madrid Open and Wimbledon, but despite her high seeding in both tournaments, the Spaniard was no match for the former world number one.
Second seed Badosa clashed with the unseeded Halep in the second round of the Madrid Open that year, where the Romanian dropped just four games en route to victory, and her powers did not let up with a place in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on the line.
Badosa had won 90% of her service games in her opening three matches of the Grand Slam tournament that year, but she was left to lament a day where "everything went wrong" after Halep cruised into the last eight with a 6-1 6-2 triumph on the grass.
We say: Halep to win in three sets
Rustiness could come into play for both Halep and Badosa here, but while the latter has already been building up minutes on the WTA Tour in 2024, she is evidently still not at 100% physically owing to her recent complications.
The Spaniard's aggressive style could still trouble and out-of-practice Halep, but she was overwhelmed by the Romanian's power in their previous two showdowns, and we are backing the returning wild card to capitalise on Badosa's fitness troubles and come back with a bang to set up a tasty Sabalenka showdown.
Ben Knapton
