Yanina Wickmayer suspended for one year, withdraws from Bali

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Wilson Blade 9

This is unbelievable, 20-year-old Yanina Wickmayer received a one-year suspension and it happened in the Belgian’s breakthrough year in which she reached the US Open semifinals as an unseeded player, won her first two WTA Tour titles (Estoril and Linz) and cracked the Top 20.

The reason for the suspension: Wickmayer failed to report her whereabouts to anti-doping officials three times. However, the world No.18 denied any wrongdoing and is planning to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Wickmayer voluntarily withdrew from the ongoing Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions because of the punishment.

21 COMMENTS

  1. They let Agassi get away with crystal meth, but Yanina is punished for POSSIBLE drug use? (it is not yet proved).This is so unfair!!

  2. She’s punished for supposed drug use, but primarily for being irresponsible and not reporting where she was. Although, Yanina denies that too. We’ll see how her appeal will go.

  3. It seems authorities has toughened up. Wickermayer is apparently no angel. At a tournament earlier this year she had all her prize money stripped off from her because of an attack on a line judge (physical!)
    She needs to keep her cool because things are getting a dangerous turn. She’s still very young so there’s time to learn some pro manners.

  4. Innocent until proven guilty anyone? I know she failed to give her whereabouts for the three tests but still this punishment is too harsh. If she had failed a drug test then I could understand a smaller suspension but to me this is unbelievable. I know it was in men’s tennis, but Richard Gasquet only had to serve a three month suspension for testing positive for cocaine. If this one year ban was for what I would consider to be a worse offence, like testing positive for a prohibited substance, then the length of the ban would be justified but surely this isn’t right.

  5. Hmm,strange things going on in the women’s game it seems. Maybe they are so harsh because they want to prove to the fans they are really hard on following the rules.

  6. Carlos, that is exactly what I asked myself? What has she got to hide? Why so much hesitation to do the test? And having done that 3 times…it’s basically playing with the fire. Although what it has caused is more like an explosion,to be fair. With regards to testing athletes I think players receive unequal treatment. If you compare the cases of Hingis and Agassi: in both cases there were allegations of drug use. In Hingis case punishment was severe and fast whereas Andre got off the hook using a schoolboy excuse. To be honest,I don’t have much trust in justice in tennis authorities having seen all the big “differences” in their approach to players.

  7. Carlos, Marine, it’s not that Yanina was hiding. As I understand, she had some technical problems with the system:

    “Wickmayer said last month she has had trouble with her password in the computerized system overseen by the World Anti-Doping Agency. She also said registered mail at her home could not be signed off on because she was travelling to WTA tournaments.

    She has insisted she never missed an anti-doping test and her samples were always negative.”

    And here’s Yanina’s reaction when she heard the news:

    “I think I woke up the whole hotel with my screams and I didn’t stop crying for two days. It was not until June that I learned from the federation that my whereabouts had not been in order. Since July, my whereabouts have been in order daily and let’s be clear: I have never failed or refused a test. I have been tested 10 to 15 times this year. I find it such a pity that my name is now associated with doping.”

  8. If she had trouble with the computerize system why didn’t she alert World Anti-Doping Agency? Why didn’t she alert them before hand? There is too much smoke in order not to be fire. She can cry and scream all she wants, if she is clean like she says she is then she shouldn’t procrastinate on very important issues in her career.

    I’m sorry Ms. Marija I didn’t understand what you said about her register mail, “register mail could not be signed on off”. Couldn’t she leave the address of a family member or her agent for them to get the mail for her? How about having someone stop by her house and check the mail for her?

  9. Well, it’s really weird the authorities have acted like that. I don’t understand that. What I can make out from that is that the they use an unequal meter…
    Some players commit an assault and are allowed to play on, others are under suspicion of something which hasn’t been proven yet and are banned very fast.

  10. Carlos, as I understand she wasn’t even aware she was doing something wrong, and the ban came all of a sudden. And about the quote you don’t understand, those are Yanina’s words, not mine. She was having trouble with their system. I don’t know, time will tell. I wouldn’t put the blame on her just yet.

  11. Please learn how to use quotation marks and how to quote 🙂 . The last time that we had a little misunderstanding was with JJ. You wrote “Wickmayer said last month…” also this parts should not have been in quotes “she has insisted that she never…” and “she also said” this parts looked liked were paraphrased, but were in quotes. When quoting someone a person must write exactly what the person has said nothing more. This is how it should had been written: Wickmayer said last month, “I had trouble with the my password in the computerize system…” she also said, “Registered mail at home could not be signed on off because I was traveling to WTA events”. If indeed it was what she said. The way that you quote confuses me and is leading to misunderstanding.

  12. I know how to use quotes, Carlos. Sorry for the confusion. I forgot to point out that I quoted ESPN actually, so that’s why “she said” is in quotation marks. The other quote is Yanina’s.

  13. Thank you for clearing that up for me, and I’m letting you know Yaninna’s excuse is a bunch of BS and you can quote me on that. 😛

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