Simona Halep, a former Wimbledon champion, has expressed her frustration over the length of time it is taking for her doping case to be resolved.
The 31-year-old Romanian has been provisionally suspended for the past six months after testing positive at the US Open in August.
However, she denies knowingly taking the banned substance and claims that the failed test was due to a contaminated supplement.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency, which is responsible for testing in the sport, has said that Halep’s case is being run in line with the World Anti-Doping Code and that the process is ongoing.
In her first interview since the provisional ban was imposed in October, Halep said that losing days, weeks, and months at her age was particularly challenging and that the longer it took for the case to be resolved, the harder it would be for her to come back.
Halep, who was ranked ninth when the ban came into force, is one of the highest-profile tennis players to fail a drugs test and the most prominent since Maria Sharapova was banned in 2016.
Investigations into failed tests by the ITIA are often complex, especially when the player denies knowingly taking the substance.
Such cases can take several months to be resolved, and players can produce evidence to disprove or mitigate the failed test. This can lead to further investigation and testing by the ITIA, further extending the process. Halep has not asked for special treatment but only to be judged fairly and quickly.
