“Today begins the hardest battle of my life: the fight for the truth.” For example, Simona Halep reacted last Friday to the news of her positive doping test and subsequent provisional suspension. The former world number one and winner of Roland Garros (2018) and Wimbledon (’19) tested positive for roxadustat at the US Open in August after a loss against Ukrainian Darija Snihoer. This Epo-related substance stimulates the production of red blood cells and has been on the list of banned substances since this year. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) will look into the case and make a ruling. The 31-year-old Romanian, the current number 9 in the world, faces a sentence of up to four years.
Where in cycling or athletics the fuss would have been great after a famous player was caught doping, the reactions from the tennis world were mild. Halep expressed “shocked” and invoked her “honor and love” for the sport. Expressions of support rained on social media. Halep received support from her (former) coaches, her French colleague Alize Cornet and the players’ association PTPA, founded by Novak Djokovic, also offered her support.
It fits the reputation of the ‘clean’ sport that tennis has long fashioned itself. In the last century positive cases were sometimes hidden. For example, André Agassi admitted that in 1997 he tested positive for the use of crystal meth, but that the case had been dropped. However, the time when it could be stated that doping in tennis is virtually non-existent is far in the past. Since the introduction of controls in professional tennis in 1986, dozens of cases of doping have been discovered.
Czech Petr Korda was the first known sinner in 1998. He was caught using the muscle enhancer nandrolone at Wimbledon and was given a one-year ban. Argentine tennis player Mariano Puerta was banned for eight years in December 2005 for violating doping regulations for the second time in a few years. Two years later, after he was caught taking the muscle-strengthening drug clenbuterol, etilefrine was found in his urine two years later. Later, the suspension was reduced to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.
Sharapova’s heart medicine
The most famous doping case was that of Russian superstar Maria Sharapova, who was banned for two years in 2016 for using the banned substance meldonium. That drug was found with her during the Australian Open. Sharapova is said to have used the heart drug for ten years before it was banned. But she continued to do so when meldonium was added to the banned substances list on January 1, 2016.
The responsibility for the anti-doping policy in tennis lies with the ITIA since this year. The world tennis association ITF was responsible for this. It carried out more than 6,600 doping checks in 2021, more than half of which during tournaments. For comparison: the UCI cycling federation, which has the checks carried out by the international doping authority ITA, checked more than 12,800 times in the same year, two-thirds of which were out of competition.
In the Netherlands, the Doping Authority carried out 25 checks on tennis players last year, out of a total of eight thousand. According to chairman Vincent Egbers, this is explainable: “Doping has a greater influence on sports other than tennis. Things like technique and hand-eye coordination play a role in this.” When making a risk analysis before distributing the tests, the chance of doping cases in tennis is estimated to be lower than in rowing, cycling or athletics, says Egbers.
Federal doctor Babette Pluim of the KNLTB also agrees that tennis is not one of the sports with a high risk of doping. Pluim: “Epo mainly has an effect for athletes who constantly have to make great efforts. In tennis players, the maximum oxygen uptake is 55 to 60 percent. For cyclists this is sometimes 90 to 100 percent. Tennis players who are on the court for an hour and a half do not benefit from EPO.”
Tennis may be more of a technical sport, but the game on the court has become faster and more physically demanding. Matches sometimes last for hours and are often played under grueling conditions. In order to prevent tennis players from taking unauthorized help for this, the controls have become much stricter over the past decade. Initially, they mainly checked for urine, but now also for blood. The drug on which Halep was tested positive promotes endurance. She is the first tennis player to test positive for the use of blood doping.
Egbers calls it strange that the substance roxadustat, an anemia medicine, was found in Halep’s blood. “Other alternatives, including EPO, are more difficult to detect than this foreign substance.”
Straightforward and simpler
The burden of proof now lies with Halep, Egbers explains. “You can compare it to someone who runs a red light and gets a flash. If he or she wants to avoid a penalty afterwards, there must have been a very good reason to run a red light.”
According to Pluim, checks should be unambiguous and simpler. “There is always a gray area, not everyone is malicious. Of course there are the real doping sinners, but it also concerns tennis players who have used contaminated food supplements or who have undergone medical treatment without having an exemption. In such cases, a severe punishment is sour. Perhaps it would be better if there were a shorter list of substances that harm the athlete and are demonstrably promoting performance. Because that’s what it’s all about.”
One possible way out for tennis players is the ‘therapeutic use exemption’. For example, by applying for an exemption on medical grounds prior to using a drug, Sharapova could have avoided a suspension. She didn’t. Halep also apparently did not request permission in advance for the use of roxadustat.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of October 25, 2022