Simona Halep – Paula Badosa, WTA 1000 first round match count in Miami (Florida, USA) is scheduled for Tuesday, March 19, no earlier than 17:00 and will be broadcast live on Digi Sport 1.

Simona Halep returns to the WTA tournament after a 19-month break during which she was suspended for doping (Sport Resolutions dictated four years starting on October 7, 2022, but TAS reduced the sanction to only nine months, which actually ended. July 6, 2023).

Simona Halep played her last match on August 29, 2022, when she lost in the first round of the US Open to Daria Snigur (2-6, 6-0, 4-6).

The former world No. 1, who is no longer ranked by the WTA, has received a wild card into the Miami Open and will face Paula Badosa, another player with recurring injury problems, in the first round.

“It is still too early to think about the results. I want to see how I feel when I get back. Miami is a good tournament, I always liked playing there. But now it is difficult to say anything. I haven’t played in official matches for a year and a half and now it’s difficult to express my opinion. I want to see how I feel when I come back and after that I will set my goals,” said Simona Halep.

On the other hand, Paula Badosa is in a very bad form, failing to make it past the second round of any tournament in 2024, except for the Australian Open, where she reached the round of 16 (third round); and the last notable performance of the Spanish athlete was the quarterfinals in Rome in 2023 (the former second WTA racket has now reached 80th place).

Paula Badoza has faced medical problems in recent years, and in 2023 she was absent from the field for five months; In February this year, she was forced to withdraw from Dubai due to a back injury.

The winner of the Simona Halep-Pauley Badosa match will play in the second round of the competition against Aryna Sabalenko, 2WTA, who has a bye in the first round.

Simona Halep has a record 24 WTA trophies won in her career, including Roland Garros (2018) and Wimbledon (2019), while Paula Badosa has won three titles so far, the most important of which is at Indian Wells (2021).

The two athletes have met twice on the WTA, with Simona Halep winning each match against Paula Badosa, 6-3, 6-1 in the second round in Madrid (2022) and 6-1, 6-2 in the Wimbledon round of 16 ( 2022).

Superbet offers odds of 2.40 on the prediction of Total sets over 2.5: three sets, regardless of the winner, in the match between Simona Halep and Paula Bados.

* the tariff is valid at the time of publication of the article