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Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam champion and former number one tennis player in the world, responds to being banned for four years on Tuesday.
Her suspension for doping violations was announced Tuesday by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
Halep tested positive for roxadustat, an anti-anemia medication, at the US Open in October of 2022 and has not played in a tournament since. Roxadustat is also considered to be blood doping agent that increases hemoglobin and the production of red blood cells.
She was also charged with having irregularities in her Athlete Biological Passport.
Halep, who was ranked 10th in the world at the end of the 2022 tennis season, has maintained that the roxadustat entered her system via a contaminated supplement.
The ITIA, however, “determined the volume the player ingested could not have resulted in the concentration of roxadustat found in the positive sample.”
According to the ITIA statement, “three independent Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) experts” determined “that ‘likely doping’ was the explanation for the irregularities in Halep’s profile.”
The 31-year-old Romanian will now be ineligible to compete until October 2026.
Simona Halep is one of the most decorated women’s tennis players of all time. She was ranked world number one on two different occasions for a total of 64 weeks – 12th most all time in WTA history.
She also spent 373 consecutive weeks, from January 2014 to August 2021, ranked in the top 10 in the world – eighth longest in WTA history – and was never ranked lower than fourth during that time.
Halep also won the 2018 French Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships. She was also a French Open junior champion and also made the finals of three other Grand Slam events.
Taking to Twitter, Simona Halep vowed to continue to fight her suspension and “do everything in my power to clear my name of these false allegations and return to the court.”
“This group ignored the fact no prohibited substance has ever been found in my blood or urine samples with the sole exception of one August 29 positive test for roxadustat, which was present at an extremely low level and which, when considering my negative test three days prior, could only have been caused by accidental exposure to roxadustat,” Halep claimed.
“The last year has been the hardest match of my life, and unfortunately my fight continues,” Halep added. “I have devoted my life to the beautiful game of tennis. I take the rules that govern our sport very seriously and take pride in the fact I have never knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance. I refused to accept their decision of a four-year ban.”
My fight continues. pic.twitter.com/kx5uzrLWCz
— Simona Halep (@Simona_Halep) September 12, 2023
Halep’s suspension coincidentally happened on the same day that another former number one tennis player in the world, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, gave testimony on the first day of her fraud trial in Spain.