Former tennis world No. 1 Simona Halep questions ‘big difference in treatment’ for doping violation compared to Iga Świątek

Former women’s world No. 1 Simona Halep has criticized the “big difference in treatment” she received from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) compared to the body’s handling of Iga Świątek’s failed test.

Former women’s world No. 1 Simona Halep has criticized the “big difference in treatment” she received from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) compared to the body’s handling of Iga Świątek’s failed test. On Thursday, it was announced that Świątek had accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine. The ITIA said they found Świątek’s “level of fault was considered to be at the lowest end of the range for ‘No Significant Fault or Negligence.’” Halep, however, was handed a four-year ban in September 2023 after testing positive for the banned substance Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open, when she was provisionally suspended. Halep maintained the anti-doping violations were not intentional and, in March this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) agreed and reduced the backdated ban to nine months, clearing the two-time grand slam champion to return to the sport. “I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment?” Halep said in a post on Instagram on Friday, per Reuters. “I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer. “It can only be bad will from the ITIA, the organization that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence. It was painful, it is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful.”