The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company (ITIA) is going through extreme backlash for providing Iga Swiatek only a one-month ban after the world No. 2 examined optimistic for the banned substance trimetazidine in August.
Former world No. 1 Simona Halep — banned in 2022 for 9 months (initially 4 years) for testing optimistic for roxadustat — blasted the ITIA for the disparity in the way it arms out bans.
By a strongly-worded social media put up, Halep questioned how her case differed from Swiatek’s.
“I stand and ask myself, why is there such a giant distinction in therapy and judgment?” Halep wrote on Instagram. “I can not discover and I do not suppose there is usually a logical reply. It could solely be dangerous will from the ITIA, the organisation that has completed completely every thing to destroy me regardless of the proof. It was painful, it’s painful and possibly the injustice that was completed to me will all the time be painful.”
On the time of her suspension, Halep denied information of taking the banned substance, arguing that solely small quantities of the anemia drug entered her system from a licensed complement. In Swiatek’s case, ITIA absolved her of “no vital fault or negligence” since her optimistic check was attributable to a regulated remedy bought in Poland that she had been taking “for jet lag and sleep points.”
