Romanian tennis player Simona Halep suffered a panic attack during her second-round match of the French Open 2022. She was unable to recover from the incident and ended up conceding the game 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 to 19-year-old Zheng Qinwen of China.
Halep, who had won the women's singles title in 2018, was one more big name to be knocked out on a day that produced many upsets at Roland Garros.
The former World No 1 was leading the match when the panic attack occurred. She tried to ignore it but then eventually had to call the doctors on the court.
After the match, talking to the media, Halep said, “It was a panic attack but I don’t know why it happened because I was leading the match.”
Halep struggled physically in the second half of her contest against her Chinese opponent, tapering off badly in the second set as Zheng won 11 of the final 12 games.
Halep said that she has never dealt with such an incident before and hence didn’t know how to focus on the game. “I don’t have these attacks often so I couldn’t focus after it happened on court. I tried but after that the match got pretty tough for me and I lost.”
However, Halep said that after the match she was feeling better and had recovered from the panic attack and said this episode will be a lesson for her. “I feel good now, I have recovered. I will learn from this episode and its nothing dangerous and it happens. So, it's good that now I can smile,” she stated.
Earlier in the tournament the 2018 French Open winner had defeated Germany’s Nastaja Mariana Schunk by 6-4, 1-6, 6-1, to enter the second round of the Grand Slam.
Meanwhile, the current World No 1 Iga Swiatek has continued her brilliant form in the French Open as well. After defeating United States’ Alison Riske 6-0, 6-2, Swiatek has now won 30 consecutive matches, becoming only the fourth person after Venus Williams, Serena Williams, and Justine Henin to claim this achievement.
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