World quantity two and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing optimistic for a banned substance.
The 23-year-old reigning French Open champion examined optimistic for a coronary heart medicine, trimetazidine (TMZ), in an out-of-competition pattern in August 2024, when she was world primary.
The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company (ITIA) accepted that it was brought on by contamination of the regulated non-prescription medicine melatonin, manufactured and offered in Poland, which Swiatek took for jet lag and sleep points.
Swiatek’s degree of fault was due to this fact thought-about to be on the lowest finish of the vary for ‘No Vital Fault or Negligence’.
“Within the final two-and-a-half months I used to be topic to strict ITIA proceedings, which confirmed my innocence,” she stated on Instagram.
“The one optimistic doping check in my profession, exhibiting unbelievably low degree of a banned substance I’ve by no means heard about earlier than, put all the pieces I’ve labored so laborious for my whole life into query.
“Each me and my group needed to cope with large stress and anxiousness. Now all the pieces has been fastidiously defined, and with a clear slate I can return to what I really like most.”
Swiatek was provisionally suspended from 12 September earlier than efficiently interesting, lacking three tournaments.
The Polish participant appealed the provisional suspension on 22 September, notifying an unbiased tribunal that the supply of the optimistic check had been recognized as a contaminated drugs manufactured in her dwelling nation.
After testing confirmed Swiatek’s account, the ITIA provided her a one-month suspension which she accepted on Wednesday.
As a result of her provisional suspension was lifted on 4 October, Swiątek’s interval of ineligibility will finish on 4 December 2024.
The Pole was additionally compelled to forfeit the prize cash from her run to the Cincinnati Open semi-finals, the event that straight adopted the check.
Swiatek missed the Korea Open (16-22 September), China Open (25 September – 6 October) and Wuhan Open (7-13 October – she was suspended throughout the entry deadline).
The ITIA didn’t disclose her provisional suspension as a result of the participant efficiently appealed inside 10 days of the discover.
ITIA chief government Karen Moorhouse stated: “As soon as the supply of the TMZ had been established, it turned clear that this was a extremely uncommon occasion of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated drugs.
“Nevertheless, the product doesn’t have the identical designation globally, and the truth that a product is a regulated medicine in a single nation can’t of itself be ample to keep away from any degree of fault. Making an allowance for the character of the medicine, and all of the circumstances, it does place that fault on the lowest finish of the dimensions.”
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