The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company (ITIA) is dealing with extreme backlash for providing Iga Swiatek solely a one-month ban after the world No. 2 examined constructive for the banned substance trimetazidine in August.
Former world No. 1 Simona Halep — banned in 2022 for 9 months (initially 4 years) for testing constructive for roxadustat — blasted the ITIA for the disparity in the way it fingers 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 an enormous 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 may 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 at all times be painful.”
On the time of her suspension, Halep denied data 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 important fault or negligence” since her constructive check was brought on by a regulated treatment offered in Poland that she had been taking “for jet lag and sleep points.”
