The two-time Grand Slam tournament winner Simona Halep has been successful with an appeal to the Cas Sports Court. She was banned for a long time for doping, but is now allowed to play again.
The International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has reduced Romanian tennis player Simona Halep’s doping ban from four years to nine months. The former world number one can now play again.
The 32-year-old had challenged a ban imposed on her by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (Itia) for violations of the anti-doping program in tennis and was now partially successful, as the Cas announced. Halep had requested that the verdict be overturned.
“My sincere thanks go to my legal team, whose unwavering faith and extraordinary commitment have been instrumental in overcoming these turbulent times,” Halep wrote on Instagram: “I look forward to closing these chapters and getting back to work with renewed vigor and a strengthened spirit to go on tour.”
The two-time Grand Slam tournament winner (Wimbledon 2019, French Open 2018) gave a positive doping test during her participation in the US Open in August 2022. The banned substance roxadustat, which was included in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2022 banned list, was found on her. A second charge related to irregularities in her athlete biological passport. Halep was originally closed until October 2026. As a result of the Cas ruling, the ban expired in July 2023.
Cas: Violation not intentional
The CAS found a violation of the anti-doping rules, but after “careful examination” followed Halep’s statement that the banned substance “entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated dietary supplement (…)”. And further: “As a result, the Cas Panel concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, Ms. Halep was also able to establish that her anti-doping rule violations were not willful.”
Itia announced last autumn that there had been a negotiation in London on June 28th and 29th last year, at which, among other things, scientific experts from both sides were heard. The court ruled that Halep intentionally violated the anti-doping program.
Halep had always protested her innocence in both cases and explained the positive doping sample by saying that she had been a victim of contamination. The court accepted this argument, but at the same time found that the amount the player allegedly took could not have led to the roxadustat concentration found in the doping sample, Itia said at the time.