There are many components that go into the making of a successful tennis player.  Work ethic, ability, and of course talent all play a role.  But those attributes mean nothing if they are not accompanied by the precious commodities of belief and confidence.  Without belief in her game and confidence to get the job done, it can be difficult for even the greatest of players to sustain success.  Sadly, Simona Halep looks like a case in point.

Thus far, 2016 has been an overall disappointment for the top Romanian and her fans.  She struggled to string together victories in the months of January and February, which left her in a poor position to defend her title in Indian Wells.  While she did ultimately fell short of defending that prestigious title, the current No. 6 looked like she might finally be back on the right track.  She put in a respectable quarterfinal showing in the desert and backed it up with an identical result in Miami.  After splitting her two singles matches in Romania's loss to Germany in Fed Cup play this past weekend – a tie that was contested on clay – there had to be hope that Halep would continue to build on the momentum she had been accruing this spring.  Alas, it was not to be.  Instead she suffered a lopsided defeat in her opening match at Stuttgart to home qualifier Laura Siegemund.  

This was not the first bad loss that Halep has suffered on the dirt in an event of this magnitude.  Just last year, she made early exits from both Madrid and Roland Garros.  A key difference between those exits and what occurred this week, though, is that those came on the heels of what had already been an exceptional few months for the Romanian.  It was understandable that she might have been tired as her body grew used to winning and playing more matches.  That same excuse cannot be applied this year.  Halep needed a good week in the bustling German city, and given that she was defending a semifinal appearance from a year ago, her defeat on Thursday comes as an even greater disappointment.

As disappointing as any loss is, however, more troubling are the reasons behind the losses and the manner in which many of them are coming.  It is no secret that Halp has had issues being physically at her best this year as she continues to battle niggling injuries.  Her decision to more often than not play through these injuries, particularly given her small and thin frame, has to be brought into question as to what it could mean for her in the long run.  There are also ample question marks surrounding where she is mentally right now.  She has looked increasingly indecisive in matches, unsure of how to strike the right balance between offense and defense.  As a result, she finds herself either making more errors or being bullied about the court, and that is how she ends up suffering one-sided losses such as her defeat to Siegemund this week, in which she won only three games.  Altogether, these various components have left Halep in a very precarious position heading into the heart of the clay season.

Naturally, Halep is fighting an uphill battle to find her game and get it firing on all cylinders before she arrives in Paris and subsequently moves on to the grass and hard courts of summer.  But it is a battle that can be won.  Fans need only look to Agnieszka Radwanska, a woman who had a horrible first half of 2015 before turning things around to win the WTA Championships and move up to No. 2 in the rankings.  But the longer Halep goes without stringing together wins, the harder it will be.  She is too talented of a player to believe she will not emerge from this slump, but nothing is a guarantee.  She is going to have to find a way to climb out of it on her own.