Former No. 1 tennis player Simona Halep gets four-year ban in doping case

LONDON (AP) — Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep has been suspended from skilled tennis for 4 years for doping violations, the International Tennis Integrity Agency said Tuesday.

The 31-year-old Romanian “committed intentional anti-doping rule violations ” by failing a drug test in the course of the 2022 U.S. Open and for irregularities in her Athlete Biological Passport, the ITIA said.

Halep, who plans to appeal the ruling, had been provisionally suspended since October 2022. The four-year ban will run to Oct. 6, 2026.

Halep reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings in 2017. She won Wimbledon in 2019, beating 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the ultimate, a yr after winning the French Open.

Halep, who had blamed contaminated dietary supplements, plans to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“I’m continuing to coach and do every thing in my power to clear my name of those false allegations and return to the court,” Halep said in a press release.

She said she also will “pursue all legal remedies against the complement company in query.”

The ITIA’s tribunal heard from Halep and her expert scientific witnesses but concluded that the player committed each offenses.

“The tribunal accepted Halep’s argument that that they had taken a contaminated complement, but determined the amount the player ingested couldn’t have resulted in the concentration of Roxadustat found in the positive sample,” the ITIA said.

Roxadustat, in keeping with the European Union’s medicines agency, stimulates the body to supply more of the natural hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, which has long been a doping product favoured by cyclists and distance runners.

Halep’s biological passport profile had been examined by an authority panel. Such passports provide a baseline reading of gear in an athlete’s body and are considered a strategy to help chart doping.

The tribunal reported that “likely doping” was the reason for the irregularities in Halep’s profile.

Halep is probably the most distinguished tennis player to receive a ban since five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova tested positive for a newly banned substance on the 2016 Australian Open. Sharapova appealed her two-year suspension to CAS, which reduced the penalty, ruling she bore “lower than significant fault” in the case and couldn’t “be considered to be an intentional doper.”

In a press release on Tuesday, the WTA said it’s “of the utmost importance for players to concentrate on the Tennis Anti-Doping Program rules and to follow them. … The WTA will support the choices reached through the method and can proceed to follow this closely.”

Halep, who will probably be 35 when her suspension ends, said she had adjusted her dietary supplements ahead of the 2022 hardcourt season.

“I take the foundations that govern our sport very seriously and take pride in the very fact I actually have never knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance,” she said in her statement. “I refused to just accept their decision of a four-year ban.”

Halep had considered retiring earlier in 2022 after a series of injuries, but then said she felt rejuvenated after teaming up with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who used to work with Williams.

Mouratoglou said the ITIA has been “ totally unfair to Simona and it is completely unacceptable.” The system, he added, is “destroying careers of innocent players.”

Williams was searching for her eighth Wimbledon title when she lost 6-2, 6-2 to Halep on the All England Club in 2019. Without context and hours after Halep’s ban was announced, the American posted on X, formerly referred to as Twitter: “ 8 is a greater number.”