Halep upset with how Swiatek’s doping case was dealt with in comparison with hers

Simona Halep, a former Wimbledon and French Open tennis participant, has expressed disappointment in the way in which Iga Swiatek’s doping case was dealt with in comparison with her personal.

Romania’s Halep, 33, who acquired a four-year sentence for drug use, stated there was a giant distinction in the way in which tennis officers dealt with their circumstances.

“I sit and attempt to perceive nevertheless it’s unattainable for me to know one thing like this,” Halep wrote on Friday on her Instagram account. “I sit and ask myself, “Why is there such a giant distinction in therapy and judgment?”

“I am unable to discover, and I do not suppose there might be, an affordable reply. It may possibly solely be dangerous will on the a part of ITIA, a company that’s doing all the pieces doable to destroy me regardless of the proof.”

The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company introduced Thursday that five-time main champion Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension after testing optimistic for the banned drug trimetazidine, a coronary heart medicine often called TMZ.

The 23-year-old Pole failed an out-of-competition drug take a look at in August, and the ITIA accepted his rationalization that the end result was unintentional and brought on by contamination from an unlicensed drug, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues. with jet lag and sleep.

Halep, who received the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, was banned for 4 years after testing optimistic for the banned drug Roxadustat on the 2022 US Open.

His suspension was decreased by the Court docket of Arbitration for Sport to 9 months after CAS accepted his rationalization for the contaminated complement. However he missed 1 1/2 years of enjoying time.

“I’ve all the time believed in one thing good, I imagine within the goodness of this sport, I imagine in magnificence,” Halep wrote on Instagram. . How is it doable that in the identical conditions that occurred at virtually the identical time (of the season), ITIA had utterly totally different strategies, to my detriment?”

Swiatek’s case prompted males’s tennis participant Nick Kyrgios, runner-up at Wimbledon in 2022, to jot down “OUR GAME IS COOKED” on X, previously often called Twitter.

Canadian tennis participant Denis Shapovalov, ranked quantity 56, posted a sarcastic tweet ” 1 month ban eh ” on his web page.

Swiatek’s case follows an identical one involving Jannik Sinner, a top-ranked males’s participant.

The offender examined optimistic for anabolic steroids twice in March however was not barred from the ITIA resolution as a result of the company dominated he was harmless.

It has led to claims by some observers of the two-tier system, with critics saying it affords safety to Soni due to his place as a number one participant.

Earlier this month, ATP Tour chairman Andrea Gaudenzi admitted “there could possibly be higher communication” when explaining the foundations concerned in Sinner’s doping case, however denied allegations of a double commonplace.

The choice to take away the offender was, nonetheless, overturned by the World Anti-Doping Company (WADA) in September.

WADA is in search of a ban of 1 to 2 years and Switzerland-based CAS is anticipated to make a last resolution on the case in 2025.