page_title: Simona Halep
section_title: 2014: French Open final, world No. 2
hierarchical_section_title: Simona Halep / Professional career / 2014: French Open final, world No. 2
caption_attribution_description: English: The eight competitors in the 2014 WTA Finals. From left: Caroline Wozniacki, Agnieszka Radwańska, Petra Kvitová, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Eugenie Bouchard and Ana Ivanović at the WTA Finals 2014 Single's draw ceremony, Singapore.
context_page_description: Simona Halep is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019. In total, she has been No. 1 for 64 weeks, which ranks tenth in the history of the Women's Tennis Association rankings. Halep was the year-end No. 1 in 2017 and 2018. She has finished each year ranked no lower than No. 4 since 2014 and has the longest active streak of being ranked in the top 10. She has won 21 WTA singles titles and has finished runner-up 17 times. Halep has won two Grand Slam singles titles, at the 2018 French Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships.
  Halep first broke into the world's top 50 at the end of 2011, reached the top 20 in August 2013, and then the top 10 in January 2014. She won her first six WTA titles in the same calendar year in 2013, and was the first to do so since Steffi Graf in 1986. This led to her being named the WTA Most Improved Player at the end of the year. Halep reached three Grand Slam finals at the 2014 French Open, the 2017 French Open, and the 2018 Australian Open before winning her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2018 French Open against Sloane Stephens.
context_section_description: Halep greatly improved her Grand Slam results in 2014. She reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open with a victory over No. 8, Jelena Janković, where she was upset by No. 20, Dominika Cibulková. With this result, Halep made her debut in the top 10 of the WTA rankings. The next month, Halep won her first Premier 5 title at the Qatar Open, defeating three top 10 opponents in the last three rounds, including No. 9 Angelique Kerber in the final. After a semifinal at the Indian Wells Open, she rose to No. 5 in the world, making her the highest-ranked Romanian in the history of the WTA rankings. During the clay court season, Halep reached the two biggest finals of her career to date. She finished runner-up to Maria Sharapova at both the Premier Mandatory Madrid Open and the French Open. She had not lost a set before the French Open final, making her the first woman to reach her maiden Grand Slam final without dropping a set since Martina Hingis at the 1997 Australian Open. Both finals went to three sets, and the French Open final lasted over three hours. With these two runner-ups, Halep moved up to No. 3.
  The next month, Halep came close to another Grand Slam final at Wimbledon, but was upset in the semifinals by No. 13, Eugenie Bouchard, after suffering an ankle injury in the first set. Nonetheless, she recovered in time to play inaugural Bucharest Open in her home country of Romania a week later. She won the event for her second and last title of the year, defeating Roberta Vinci in the final. This helped her rise to No. 2 in the world in August. Although she was the second seed at the US Open, she was upset in straight sets by veteran qualifier Mirjana Lučić-Baroni. The next month, she withdrew from the Beijing Open in the quarterfinals due to a hip injury. She did not play another event until the WTA Tour Championships, where she qualified for the first time. Halep won two of three matches in her round robin group to advance to the knockout rounds, defeating No. 5, Eugenie Bouchard and No. 1, Serena Williams before losing her last match to No. 7, Ana Ivanovic. The victory over Williams was her first over a current world No. 1 and was also tied for the most lopsided loss of Williams' career at the time, as Halep held her to just two games. Halep won her semifinal against No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska to set up a rematch with Williams in the final. In a complete reversal of the round robin match, Williams won the final easily, limiting Halep to just three games. Halep finished the year at No. 3 in the world, behind Williams and Sharapova.
caption: Halep (third from right) with the other competitors at the 2014 WTA Finals
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