Injured Halep vows to play in WTA Finals

World number one Simona Halep has said she does not require surgery on her back and will play in Singapore this month.

World number one Simona Halep has said she does not require surgery on her back.

Simona Halep has vowed to play in the WTA Finals amid concerns she could miss the rest of the season due to a back injury.

The world number one this week revealed that she has been diagnosed with a herniated disc.

Halep retired from her first-round match against Ons Jabeur at the China Open last weekend, having been hampered during a second-round loss to Dominika Cibulkova at the Wuhan Open.

The French Open champion was "worried" following her retirement from the encounter with Jabeur in Beijing, but says she will be fit to play in Singapore later this month.

"I talked with my team, with my relatives and we decided to play. It doesn't matter what the people are saying. It does not affect me at all at this moment," she told News.ro.

READ: Halep's season could be over due to back injury

"Everything that I understand was said, that I'm doing cortisone injections or I'm going to have a surgery, is false. It is very hard to give up, to abandon matches, of course, and this year [it] has not happened very often.

"That's why I'm going to keep my confidence high and we'll see what's going to happen in the future. I'm definitely going to the WTA Finals. The most important thing is health, but there is no question of surgery."

The Romanian added: "I feel pretty okay now. Of course I was worried, but I had an MRI [scan] and now I know precisely what's going on. I had back problems in the past, but now it's a bit more than before,

"I will work on my recovery, doing treatment, physiotherapy, that's it, nothing else. I hope to be ready to play tournaments. I think I will have a break for another week, off-court, without tennis, then I will slowly come back.

"I was worried at the beginning, because I did not know what I had, but after I did the MRI and talked to the doctors, I can say I am relaxed. Of course there is a risk, any injury involves a risk, but it's not such a big risk.

"There is no danger of something very serious happening."