Simona Halep’s initial four-year ban from tennis for doping has been reduced to nine months, allowing her to return to the sport right away.
Halep was provisionally suspended in October 2022 and then banned for four years in September 2023 due to two violations of anti-doping regulations by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
The former world No. 1 decided to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the appeal resulted in her ban being shortened to nine months.
Simona Halep has already served nine months of her provisional suspension, which was supposed to end in July 2023 with the new ban length. As a result, the two-time Grand Slam champion is now allowed to return to tennis right away.
She said in a statement: “Throughout this long and difficult process, I have maintained my belief that the truth will eventually come out and that a fair decision will be reached because I am and always have been a clean athlete.
“My faith in this process has been tested by the outrageous allegations that have been brought against me and the seemingly unlimited resources that have been aligned against me.
“But in the end, the truth prevailed, even if it took a lot longer than I would have liked.
“I would like to thank my lawyers who stood by me and believed in me from the beginning; and most importantly, I want to thank my sponsors, fans and competitors who have stuck by me through this long and difficult process.
“I can’t wait to get back on the circuit.”
Simona Halep’s most recent professional match was at the 2022 US Open, where she was defeated in the first round.
The ITIA accused Halep of two offenses: one for having a banned substance (Roxadustat) found in a urine sample taken on August 29, 2022 during the US Open, and the other was “a charge that Ms Halep’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), in particular a blood sample given by Ms Halep on 22 September 2022, established use of a prohibited substance and/or prohibited method.”
In the statement delivering their verdict, CAS said: “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 (9) months starting on 7 October 2022, which period expired on 6 July 2023.
“As that period expired before the appeal procedures were even lodged with the CAS, the CAS Panel has determined it appropriate to issue the operative part of the Arbitral Award as soon as practicable, together with a comprehensive media release.
“The CAS Panel has also ordered the disqualification of all competitive results achieved by Ms. Halep from 29 August 2022 (the date of her positive sample) to 7 October 2022, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize money. Therefore, the appeal filed by the ITIA is dismissed and the appeal filed by Simona Halep is partially upheld (her request to backdate the start of the suspension on 29 August 2022 is dismissed).”
CAS also said that while they felt that Halep “did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations” they did state that her “anti-doping rule violations were not intentional”.
The statement said: “Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that the Roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement which she had used in the days shortly before 29 August 2022 and that the Roxadustat, as detected in her sample, came from that contaminated product.
“As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had also established, on the balance of probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.
“Although the CAS Panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence.”
