![Simona Halep](https://sports.inquirer.net/files/2024/03/AP24065580607465-1-scaled.jpg)
File – Romania’s Simona Halep. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
Simona Halep posted a video on Tuesday of herself practicing on court for the Miami Open, her first match since winning an appeal against her doping suspension.
Romania's former world number one had his four-year doping ban reduced to nine months by the World Sports Supreme Court last week, making him eligible to return to competition immediately.
„It feels like we were never apart,“ Halep wrote on her Instagram Story, along with a winking emoji.
read: Simona Halep free to return after four-year doping ban shortened
“Thank you @miamiopen for your first day back.”
Halep, 32, a former Wimbledon and French Open champion, will be suspended from October 2022 after testing positive for roxadustat, a banned drug that stimulates red blood cell production, at the US Open that year. received punishment.
She was also charged with another doping crime last year for violating the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). ABP is a method designed to monitor various blood parameters over time to uncover possible doping.
Halep strongly denied the accusations against her, but said she would likely have been forced to retire had her original four-year ban been upheld.
The Miami Open will be held from March 17th to 31st.