Simona Halep received a distressing update in her ongoing doping case, and shared her emotional plea's to social media after a further delay in the decision kept her out of the US Open.

Halep has been under investigation since last year after testing positive for a banned substance by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (IATA). The year-long case has still not been resolved, and the 31-year-old is desperate to return to the court after overcoming serious injuries.

“Today I found out that the decision in my case, which was expected this week, will be further delayed. This is terribly disappointing, as I have consistently said that all I ask for is to be judged. It is hard to explain the emotional toll that all of these delays have had and continue to have on me,” Halep posted on her Instagram story.

Halep was found to have trace substances of a banned substance called Roxadustat in a pre US Open drug test in August of 2022, and was subsequently banned for an undetermined amount of time.

“Today begins the hardest match of my life: a fight for the truth. I have been notified that I have tested positive for a substance called Roxadustat in an extremely low quantity, which came as the biggest shock of my life,” Halep said in a statement after the initial ban.

She has not played since a loss in the first round of the 2022 US Open to Daria Snigur in three sets, and was devastated to learn of the ban after the match. She was previously the world No. 1 as recent as 2017, but has fallen on hard times after injuries and accusations have kept her off the court.