Eight thousand pages of documents were available to the arbitration tribunal and the Simona Halep case was heard for two days. In the verdict, the tribunal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) then agreed with the experts’ “firm belief” that the former world number one committed two doping offenses, as stated in the justification. The 31-year-old Romanian was banned for four years on Tuesday; she was provisionally suspended until then.
Simona Halep is accused of taking the banned drug Roxadustat in the summer of 2022. A second, independent charge relates to irregularities in her biological athlete passport. Simona Halep, two-time Grand Slam winner in Paris (2018) and Wimbledon (2019), has announced in a statement that she will appeal: The fight for her career continues. This is the most significant doping case in tennis since Maria Sharapova, also a former Wimbledon champion, tested positive for meldonium and was banned for 15 months.
When Halep’s four-year ban was announced on Tuesday, the player initially received expressions of solidarity from the tennis scene. Their coach Patrick Mouratoglou said he was “extremely shocked” by the verdict. The Professional Tennis Player Association (PTPA) declared its determination to “support her in her future appointments.”
“8 is a better number,” tweeted Serena Williams after the suspension was announced
However, a comment from Serena Williams, Halep’s former competitor, was cryptic: “8 is a better number,” she tweeted shortly after the verdict. This gave rise to all sorts of guesswork on social media, with discussions as to whether she was referring to the length of the suspension or alluding to the 2019 Wimbledon final, which she lost to Halep. At that time, Serena William missed her eighth victory in the grass classic – and ultimately her longed-for 24th Grand Slam trophy.
However, Simona Halep’s competition sample with the banned roxadustat was taken during the US Open in 2022. The drug is used to treat symptomatic anemia in chronic kidney disease, according to the European Medical Agency; The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has it on the banned list of substances that, like Epo, improve oxygen supply. Halep maintained her innocence and said she was a victim of dietary supplement contamination. The International Tennis Integrity Agency said it accepted this argument, but stated that the amount found could not be explained by contamination.
