Top tennis player Simona Halep has been suspended for the time being due to a positive doping test the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced on Friday. The 31-year-old Romanian tested positive for roxadustat at the US Open grand slam tournament in August in her A and B status: a drug that, like the better-known EPO, stimulates the production of red blood cells, and that has been on the doping list of the United States since this year. World Anti-Doping Agency WADA.
Due to the provisional suspension, Halep, who won two grand slam tournaments and was number one in the world ranking between 2017 and 2019, can no longer participate in tournaments of the tennis federation WTA. She faces a maximum sentence of four years. Reduction of a suspension is possible if athletes admit a violation and accept their sanction. The current season had already come to an end for her; they announced five weeks ago that she had undergone a nose operation, from which she had to recover.
Halep replied in a statement on her social media channels shocked at the suspension. “Today begins the most difficult contest of my life: a fight for the truth,” she writes. “I will fight to the end to prove that I have never knowingly used banned substances. I am confident that the truth will come out sooner or later.” Halep can, if the penalty is known, challenge her case in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).