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Simona Halep's Doping Ban Reduced To Nine Months, Can Return To Tennis Immediately

Simona Halep's doping ban has been reduced from four years to nine months and she can return to tennis immediately.

Avinash Kumar

Updated Mar 5, 2024, 22:52 IST

Simona Halep in action

Photo : X

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep's doping ban has been reduced from four years to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The decision means that Halep, who already served a provisional suspension since October 2022, can return to tennis with immediate effect as the nine-month ban expired on July 6, 2023.

Notably, the former world number one always maintained her innocence after being charged with two separate doping offences.

Halep, who won the 2018 French Open and Wimbledon in 2019, was banned by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for "intentional" doping offences.

The CAS Panel determined that "on the balance of probabilities" Halep had not taken the banned substance Roxadustat purposely and while she "did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations" it was not intentional.

The 32-year-old Romanian tested positive for Roxadustat after the US Open in August 2022 from a sample taken during the tournament and she was subsequently provisionally suspended in October of last year.

Halep objected to the intentional nature of the charge while arguing that the positive test was the result of contamination.

"Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it, the CAS panel determined that Ms Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that the Roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement which she had used in the days shortly before August 29, 2022 and that the Roxadustat, as detected in her sample, came from that contaminated product," a statement from the CAS panel said.

"As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had also established, on the balance of probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.

Although the CAS Panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence," it added.

The CAS also dismissed the biological passport finding.

"Contrary to the reasoning of the first instance tribunal, the CAS panel determined that it was appropriate in the circumstances to consider the results of a private blood sample given by Ms Halep on September 9, 2022 in the context of a surgery which occurred shortly thereafter," the statement further said.

"Those results, and Ms Halep's public statements that she did not intend to compete for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year, impacted the plausibility of the doping scenarios relied upon by the International Tennis Federation independent tribunal.

Having regard to the evidence as a whole, the CAS panel was not comfortably satisfied that an anti-doping rule violation had occurred. It therefore dismissed that charge," it added.

Meanwhile, the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which oversees tennis' anti-doping programme, has also been ordered to pay Halep around £18,000 as a contribution to her legal fees and expenses.

The court also ordered that "all results obtained by Halep in competitions taking place between August 29, 2022 - October 7, 2022 are disqualified with all resulting consequences, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize money."

Notably, Halep was the highest-profile tennis player since Maria Sharapova to fail a drugs test. The 2019 Wimbledon winner was later faced with a separate charge with irregularities in her Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and had not played since October 2022.

Halep, who was originally banned until October 2026 and feared her career would be over if the original decision was upheld, is excited to return to the tour.

"My faith in the process was tested by the scandalous accusations that were levelled against me, and by the seemingly unlimited resources that were aligned against me," Halep said.

"I cannot wait to return to the tour," she added.

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