Simona Halep tells the AP she was nervous about returning to tennis after her doping ban appeal WFTV [Video]

Flying to Florida for the Miami Open, where she would be playing in a professional tennis match for the first time in 1 1/2 years after a doping ban was reduced on appeal, Simona Halep turned to her mother and offered a bit of a confession.

“I’m very nervous,” Halep, a two-time Grand Slam champion, recalled telling Mom.

She wasn’t sure what it would be like — on the court or off. And as she prepares to resume what she called her career’s “second part” during a video interview with The Associated Press from her home in Bucharest, Romania, Halep is more comfortable with her surroundings but not quite certain how close she can get to her old self as an athlete.

“I felt like I don’t know what to expect from people (in Miami). How it’s going to be — to be in the locker room again. Players’ dining (area). All this routine that I didn’t do for …