From Court to Royal Box: Wimbledon champ Simona Halep accepts invite for Women’s Final

Former World No. 1 Simona Halep has accepted an invitation to the Royal Box for the 2025 Women’s Singles Final, where she will be a distinguished guest, attending the All England Club for the first time since her retirement. The Romanian won her second Grand Slam title at 2019 Wimbledon, in a practically perfect final against Serena Williams.

It wasn't an ideal end to Halep's career, a player who defined the last decade of the WTA Tour with her consistency and aggressive style of play. She amassed a total of 24 titles, including two Grand Slams and nine WTA 1000s, in addition to finishing the 2017 and 2018 seasons as World No. 1 and seven consecutive seasons finishing the year at least within the top-4.

However, the Romanian's last few years were marked by a suspension due to a positive doping test for Roxadustat, which led to a four-year ban starting in 2022. Nevertheless, after a long appeal process, Halep managed to prove her innocence and returned to the court at the beginning of 2024.

Despite this, injuries prevented her from competing in more than a handful of tournaments throughout the year. At the beginning of 2025, she unexpectedly announced her retirement immediately after falling in the first round of the WTA 250 Cluj-Napoca. As she explained, physical problems prevented her from returning to the level she had maintained throughout her career, and without the possibility of competing at the highest level, she preferred to end her successful career at 33 years old.

Since then, Halep has maintained a low profile, although she recently participated in a tennis exhibition in Romania, where she was welcomed as the iconic sports star she is in her country. "I've played twice in the last four months. I played with Horia Tecău for about an hour and got a beautiful blister," she said in an interview with Golazo Romania. "I miss tennis, but I'm fine without it, as I said."

"I don't feel like I stopped playing a long time ago, in terms of game, in terms of feeling, but physically I feel it, meaning my legs, my movement are no longer where they need to be," the two-time Grand Slam champion added. "For me, it was a release, it was a total relaxation, I was tired, I had a bodily reaction, I bit my lips very, very hard, I think everything was too emotional there, on the court."

"I wasn't 100% ready to announce my retirement, but that's how I felt during the match, because it was too hard to even think about continuing, and that's about it. So it wasn't a void or anything, it was a release."

The former World No. 1 acknowledged that her quality of life has improved as she no longer feels the daily pain she experienced before, but that she would still not be in a condition to make great physical efforts. "I wake up in the morning and I don't have pain, which is something very new for me. When I run at the gym, I still do a 30-40 minute run, my knee hurts afterward. It's a pretty serious condition, but it doesn't prevent me from running."

"Maybe if I started playing competitively again, I wouldn't be able to, but day-to-day it doesn't affect me. It's quite a big problem there, which may also have made me decide to retire, all of it together, I think. And emotionally, the last two, three years, now, have been hard, and along with all these moments, I decided to retire," Halep added.

Though no official details are known about whether Halep will receive any tribute or participate in the awards ceremony, the Romanian will be in the Royal Box – as a former champion of the tournament – witnessing firsthand the match that will crown the new champion between Iga Swiatek and Amanda Anisimova.