Report: Halep working to clear up drug test confusion

Simona Halep’s positive test for a banned substance which led to her October suspension from the WTA may be coming close to resolution.

That’s the insider opinion of a Romanian co-national of the former world No. 1, who said that Halep’s legal team is well on the way to proving that the double Grand Slam champion ingested Roxadustat – which increases oxygen levels – due to mislabelling of a legal supplement.

“It seems that the method by which Roxadustat entered the athlete’s body has been identified, namely by ingesting a contaminated food supplement,” Cristian Jura, a judge on the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport told Romanian  website ProSport.

“Contaminated product is a product that contains a prohibited substance, without this being specified on the product label or in information accessible through a reasonable search on the Internet.”

The normally squeaky-clean Halep has said from the start of the affair that she is keen to prove her innocence and has been backed up by most in the tennis community.

“It seems that the method by which Roxadustat entered the athlete’s body has been identified, namely by ingesting a contaminated food supplement,” Jura said. 

She still faces a tortuous legal process to clear her name and return to the courts at age 31.