Simona Halep’s doping ban reduced to nine months by CAS, can return to tennis immediately

Simona Halep has had her provisional four-year ban from tennis for doping reduced to nine months, meaning she can return to the sport immediately.

Halep, who was served a provisional suspension in October 2022, was banned for four years in September 2023 for two breaches of anti-doping rules by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).

The former world No. 1 confirmed her intention to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and that appeal delivered a verdict on Tuesday that saw the Romanian’s ban reduced from four years to nine months.

The nine months have already been served as part of her provisional suspension, which would have ended in July 2023 under the new ban length.

It means that Halep, a two-time Grand Slam champion, is cleared to return to tennis immediately.

Her last professional match was at the 2022 US Open when she was beaten in the first round.

The ITIA had charged Halep on two counts. One was a prohibited substance (Roxadustat) being detected in a urine sample collected on 29 August 2022 during the US Open and the second was “a charge that Ms Halep’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), in particular a blood sample given by Ms Halep on 22 September 2022, established use of a prohibited substance and/or prohibited method.”

“As that period expired before the appeal procedures were even lodged with the CAS, the CAS Panel has determined it appropriate to issue the operative part of the Arbitral Award as soon as practicable, together with a comprehensive media release.

“The CAS Panel has also ordered the disqualification of all competitive results achieved by Ms. Halep from 29 August 2022 (the date of her positive sample) to 7 October 2022, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize money. Therefore, the appeal filed by the ITIA is dismissed and the appeal filed by Simona Halep is partially upheld (her request to backdate the start of the suspension on 29 August 2022 is dismissed).”

CAS also said that while they felt that Halep “did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations” they did state that her “anti-doping rule violations were not intentional”.

The statement said: “Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that the Roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement which she had used in the days shortly before 29 August 2022 and that the Roxadustat, as detected in her sample, came from that contaminated product.

“As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had also established, on the balance of probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.

“Although the CAS Panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence.”