Simona Halep will make her aggressive return this week after profitable an enchantment over a doping suspension when she takes the courtroom on the Miami Open the place Indian Wells champion Iga Swiatek will look to tug off the Sunshine Double.
Halep, who accepted a wild card into the Miami Open after her four-year ban was minimize to 9 months by the highest courtroom for international sport, will face Paula Badosa on Tuesday with the winner getting world quantity two Aryna Sabalenka within the second spherical.
For Halep, the conflict towards world quantity 80 Badosa of Spain will mark her first match because the 2022 U.S. Open the place she was upset within the first spherical by Ukrainian qualifier Daria Snigur.
Halep, a former Wimbledon and French Open champion, was suspended in October 2022 after testing constructive for roxadustat – a banned drug that stimulates the manufacturing of purple blood cells – at that 12 months’s U.S. Open. Halep vigorously denied the costs towards her.
The Romanian former world primary owns a 2-0 document in head-to-head conferences with Badosa, having by no means misplaced greater than three video games in a set.
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Prime seed Swiatek missed her Miami Open title defence final 12 months resulting from damage however returns in stellar kind and contemporary off a dominant 6-4, 6-0 win over ninth seed Maria Sakkari within the Indian Wells remaining.
Now Swiatek will set her sights on capturing the Indian Wells and Miami Open titles back-to-back, a feat referred to as the Sunshine Double given the tournaments’ respective areas in California and Florida, for a second time.
Ought to Swiatek, who will face both Italy’s Camila Giorgi or fellow Pole Magdalena Frech within the second spherical, declare the Miami title she would be a part of Steffi Graff (1994, 1996) as the one ladies to finish the Sunshine Double twice.
Florida resident Coco Gauff, who reached the Indian Wells semifinals, will get pleasure from loads of crowd assist as she returns to Miami for the primary time since her triumph finally 12 months’s U.S. Open.
On the boys’s aspect, Carlos Alcaraz may even chase the ultimate piece of the Sunshine Double after a profitable title defence at Indian Wells the place he beat reigning Miami Open champion Daniil Medvedev in a rematch of the 2023 California remaining.
Whereas the Miami males’s draw is stacked, one notable absence can be world primary and six-time champion Novak Djokovic, who expressed a need to restrict the variety of occasions he performs at this stage of his adorned profession.
The 36-year-old Djokovic remains to be with no trophy this 12 months having represented Serbia on the United Cup earlier than reaching the Australian Open semi-finals and struggling a shock third spherical exit at Indian Wells.