Simona Halep has been provisionally suspended from tennis after testing positive for a prohibited substance. The former world No.1 from Romania is shocked to learn that her sample taken at the 2022 US Open revealed a doping case.
“Today begins the hardest match of my life: a fight for the truth,” the 31-year-old Halep started her Twitter post that comments on the frustrating situation she finds herself in just weeks after going through a divorce.
Having tested positive for roxadustat, although “in an extremely low quantity”, Halep can’t help but feel “completely confused and betrayed” as the idea of cheating never ever crossed her mind and it is absolutely against all her values.
According to the statement of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), Halep has already exercised her right to have her B sample analysed, but it only confirmed the finding in the A sample. Now that she is provisionally suspended, the two-time Grand Slam champion is ineligible to compete in or attend any sanctioned tennis events organized by the governing bodies of the sport.
Honor is Halep’s top priority and she will do everything to clear her name:
I will fight until the end to prove that I never knowingly took any prohibited substance and I have faith that sooner or later, the truth will come out.
This is biggest doping scandal rocking the WTA world since Maria Sharapova tested positive for meldonium in 2016. The Russian’s two-year suspension was later reduced to 15 months and she resumed her tennis career in April 2017.
I have said this many times…but all players take substances (medicine, vitamins, minerals) that improve their performance and recovery. You just have to make sure that what you are taking is legal. I think it’s extremely naive and laughable to think they are all training with the assistance if a good diet and lots of water…
These are no Lance Armstrong or Marion Jones situations so I think we all need to be a bit more understanding and not go straight into witch hung mode. It could literally happen to any player if they aren’t careful.
Why are you defending a drug-cheat Andy? lol….It’s literally HER JOB, to watch what she is putting in her body. She literally PAYS her team, to check everything and anything that is allowed to enter her body..
Regardless if she knew or didn’t know, she still took a banned substance. Now she has to suffer the consequences…How embarrassing.
Since Serena was the finalist at Wimbledon, can she have the slam instead? #24 lol
Interesting how everyone who is caught is ALWAYS shocked and horrified and denies it. So either there are people deliberately trying to cheat and think they can get away with it, or they are being slack about monitoring what they are taking, which is pretty stupid when the consequences are so serious, or the testing system is flawed in some way and needs changing. Which is it? It does seem to me that you would be really stupid to deliberately try to cheat when the testing is so rigorous. So maybe it’s a combination of the other two.
Yeah aint no way in hell Halep can out run player like Serena in the final without taking anything.
Shouldve checked Wozniacki too
I knew i never like em