Five-time women's tennis Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance, the International Tennis Integrity Authority (ITIA) announced on Thursday.
Swiatek, who has held the world No. 1 ranking for most of the past two seasons, tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart disease drug better known as TMZ, during an out-of-competition test in August.
The ITIA accepted her explanation that the results were unintentional and were caused by contamination of melatonin, an over-the-counter medicine she uses for jet lag and sleep problems.
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Iga Swiatek of the Polish team celebrates her victory over Irina-Camelia Bego of the Romanian team in the first round of the women's singles match on the opening day of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Roland Garros on July 27. (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
ITIA said Swiatek's level of negligence was at the “lowest level of the range without gross negligence or negligence”.
Swiatek was previously suspended from September 12th to October 4th and missed three tournaments during that period – the Korean Open, China Open and Wuhan Open, although at the time she was suspended for personal reasons. He said it was a thing.
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Swiatek has eight days left to serve his punishment, which will be carried out while there are no games.
Therefore, she will be allowed to return on Monday.
Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates her semi-final victory over Coco Gauff (USA) on day 12 of the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris on June 6th. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)
As part of his suspension, Swiatek will be forfeited his $158,944 winnings from the Cincinnati Open, which he played after failing a test. In the end, she was eliminated in the semifinals.
Swiatek reacted to the ITIA's decision in an Instagram video, calling it “the worst experience of my life.”
“For the past two and a half months, I have been subject to a rigorous ITIA procedure, which has confirmed my innocence,” Swiatek said in the video. “When the only positive doping test of my career came back, it showed incredibly low levels of a banned substance that I had never heard of before and that I had worked so hard to do. Everything that could have been called into question.
“My team and I have had to deal with a lot of stress and anxiety. Now that everything has been carefully explained to us, we have a clean slate and can get back to doing what we love most.”
Iga Swiatek practicing for the Omnium Bank National on August 4, 2023. (Patrice Lapointe/Tennis Canada via Omnium Bank National)
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Another high-profile doping case in the tennis world was that of Jannik Sinner, who failed two tests for steroids in March. He was ultimately disqualified in August, just before the US Open, where he won his second Grand Slam title.
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