Simona Halep has said she felt like she was “in jail” while serving her doping ban.

The former world No. 1 was provisionally suspended in October 2022 and later handed a four-year ban. She successfully appealed and it was cut to nine months, allowing her to return immediately in March.

Halep has now revealed that, during her suspension, she was stopped from attending a Jannik Sinner match.

The two-time Grand Slam champion has barely played since returning to the tour due to injury and her lack of a ranking, leaving her forced to rely on wildcards to enter tournaments. But she is still relieved to be back after comparing her experience to being in prison.

“You know, I never been in jail, and hopefully I’ll never be, but they say, many people told me it looks like you are in jail,” she told We Are Tennis. “I could not go watch a tennis match. This was the most difficult thing.”

Those suspended from the sport aren’t just stopped from playing. They are also banned from attending official tournaments sanctioned by the ATP, WTA, ITF, Grand Slams and national tennis bodies.

It meant that Halep couldn’t attend an ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris to watch Sinner, who works with her former coach Darren Cahill. She added: “So, they told me, I wanted to go to Paris Bercy to see Sinner, and I was not able.

“So, what did I do that bad that I’m not able to watch a match? This is too much, in my opinion. When I got the freedom, it was, like, a relief and the light came back.” After she was prevented from attending a match, Halep said she struggled to watch tennis from afar.

“I did not watch much,” she said. “Because it was too painful to know that I’m banned and I cannot even play or I cannot even watch in life. I said, I’m not going to watch the TV. I watched, I think, maximum eight, 10 matches in two years.”