Halep seething over Swiatek wrist-slap doping penalty

Doping sanction victim Simona Halep has gone online to protest her own treatment by anti-doping bosses in light of the one-month suspension handed to Iga Swiatak.

The Pole whose ranking has dropped to second behind Aryna Sabalenka, served her penalty in secret over the autumn and with only eight days remaining on her suspension will be ready for the Australian tennis summer beginning in less than a month.

Former world No I Halep, a double Grand Slam champion, lost at least two years of competition after successfully reduring a four-year-ban handed to her for the banned substance roxadustat

October 2022 and was later banned for four years after testing positive for the banned substance roxadustat.

The Romanian challenged her four-year ban handed down in October, 2022, getting it reduced to nine months in the Lausanne’s Court of Arbitration for Sport. 

Halep, 33, said the drug entered her system from a contaminated supplement she had been taking. Her return to tennis has been patchy, with a first-round loss last march in Miami and only four more matches played at the lower Tour level this year.

Halep went onto social media to complain about how she was treated compared to Swiatek.“I’m sitting and trying to understand, but it’s really impossible for me to understand something like this. I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment?

“I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer. It can only be bad will from ITIA, the organisation that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence.”
Halep added: 

“How is it possible that in identical cases happening around the same time ITIA to have completely different approaches to my detriment. How could I accept that the WTA and the players council did not want to return me the ranking that I deserved?!

“I really wanted to destroy the last years of my career, I wanted something that I could never have imagined would be wanted. I always believed in good, I believed in fairness, I believed in goodness. It was painful, is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful.”