Simona Halep's Doping Ban Reduced to Nine Months by CAS

 

Former Wimbledon champion Simona Halep has had her doping ban reduced from four years to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The Romanian tennis star tested positive for the blood-boosting drug Roxadustat at the US Open in 2022 and was initially handed a long ban in September of the same year.

Halep appealed to CAS, and following a hearing last month, the court decided to dramatically reduce her suspension. A statement from CAS read: "The CAS panel has unanimously determined that the four-year period of ineligibility imposed by the ITF independent tribunal is to be reduced to a period of ineligibility of nine months starting on October 7, 2022, which period expired on July 6, 2023."

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which oversees tennis' anti-doping program, had appealed for an even longer ban. However, this reduction is a significant victory for Halep, who faced the prospect of the end of her career if the original sanction stood.

The CAS panel found that Halep had consumed a contaminated supplement shortly before August 29, 2022, which led to the presence of Roxadustat in her system. They determined that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional, although she bore some level of fault for not exercising sufficient care when using the supplement.

CAS also dismissed the charge of irregularities in Halep's athlete biological passport, citing evidence from a private blood sample she gave on September 9, 2022, which impacted the plausibility of the doping scenarios relied upon by the ITF independent tribunal.

As a result, the ITIA has been ordered to pay Halep around £18,000 as a contribution to her legal fees and expenses. Halep, a former world number one, won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019.