Serena Williams and her reaction to opponent Simona Halep's 4-year ban

Seven-time Wimbledon singles champion Serena Williams wrote on X, "8 is a better number" when the decision to ban Simona Halep was made.

Accordingly, tennis fans can understand that Serena is aiming for her 24th Grand Slam title and 8th championship at Wimbledon. At Wimbledon, Serena lost to Halep in the 2019 Wimbledon final.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion has reached many finals and Wimbledon 2019 was her chance to equal Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 titles, ahead of Novak Djokovic. However, Serena had to put her dream on hold against Halep.

Haley stops Serena from reaching 24 Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon 2019

Halep has won two Grand Slam titles, Roland Garros 2018 and Wimbledon 2019. The Romanian tested positive for the banned substance roxadustat at the 2022 US Open.

She was also later found to have irregularities in her athlete biological passport after 51 blood samples were analyzed.

Roxadustat is a substance legally used to treat anemia, but is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list because it is considered a doping agent that increases hemoglobin and red blood cell production.

Former world number one Simona Halep has been banned for four years for two intentional violations of anti-doping rules, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) has announced. Halep has announced that she will appeal the ban and take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport .

Simona Halep has decided to appeal and take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

This is considered the most severe ban in tennis since Maria Sharapova. The former Russian tennis star was banned for 15 months after testing positive for meldonium.

At the time, Sharapova received a lot of support from fans and colleagues for taking meldonium without knowing it was banned. Serena Williams also sided with her arch-rival and supported her when Sharapova called the two-year ban "extremely harsh".

After Sharapova appealed, her initial two-year ban was reduced to 15 months.

In Halep's case, the sentence was even harsher. However, there was little support for her in the face of the ban.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/the-thao/serena-williams-va-phan-ung-gay-soc-voi-lenh-cam-4-nam-cua-halep-20230913095442212.htm