Simona Halep is projected to rise from number seven to world number five once the WTA Rankings are updated on Monday. The young Romanian earned this new career milestone by virtue of reaching the BNP Paribas Open semifinals on Wednesday. She became the highest-ranked Romanian player in WTA history.
Halep is one of the three Romanian WTA stars to make it in the top ten – the other two were Virginia Ruzici who achieved a career-high number eight and Irina Spirlea who made it to career-high number seven.
“It means a lot,” Halep said. “I’m now the best Romanian in history for rankings – but my goal is to win a Grand Slam, and then maybe I’ll be the best, because Virginia won the French Open.”
Only Ruzici has so far won a Grand Slam singles title among the three – winning the French Open in 1978. Halep is getting near that achievement, reaching a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first time at the Australian Open back in January.
Halep admits that she’s getting a lot of attention from her home country due to her impressive rise in the rankings for the past year.
“I get recognized everywhere. Even when I’m parking. I was surprised – I wanted to park and I didn’t have space, and someone came and put me in front of the hotel. ‘You can park here,’ he told me.
“Everybody knows me now.”
“I’m a normal girl, like everybody, and I just like to go shopping, I like listening to music, speaking on WhatsApp on my phone – I don’t watch movies in my room because I cannot stay focused two hours!”
