Geneva – Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep was given the green light to return to tennis immediately on Tuesday after the sports supreme court admitted she was not entirely at fault for testing positive for a doping agent at the 2022 US Open.
On court, former world No. 1 Halep defeated Serena Williams in the 2019 Wimbledon final, a year after winning the French Open.
In court, Halep scored a legal victory that ended a four-year ban that could have had the same impact on her career if the verdict went against her.
Instead, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dropped charges against the 32-year-old Romanian for alleged doping cheating, and his career has been put on hold for more than a year.
Three CAS judges ruled that Halep showed “on the basis of probabilities” that her positive test for a banned blood supplement was unintentional and caused by a contaminated supplement.
Halep’s four-year ban was shortened to just nine months and applied retroactively, expiring last July.
“I can’t wait to get back on tour,” Halep said in a statement released by her attorney, Howard Jacobs, who noted that she has now filed a lawsuit against the supplement maker.
She praised her victory over the “defamatory accusations” made against her and praised the “seemingly unlimited resources” of the tennis authorities who prosecuted her.
The international tennis integrity body, which banned her last year, asked CAS to impose longer sanctions that could even end her career, up to six years.
Karen Moorhouse, chief executive of the body, said in a statement that they respect the outcome of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and athletes’ right to appeal in anti-doping cases.
The CAS judge also awarded Halep 20,000 Swiss francs ($22,650) to cover ITIA’s legal fees.
Halep has not played since the 2022 U.S. Open, when she tested positive for the banned blood booster roxadustat. It helps produce more of the natural hormone erythropoietin (EPO), which has long been a favored doping product among endurance athletes.
She was temporarily suspended following an investigation that was extended after finding irregularities in her biological passport that could have revealed abnormal blood values measured over several years.
Last September, the ITIA banned Halep until October 2026, when she will turn 35.
She denies wrongdoing in testing positive and accuses nutritional supplements of being contaminated. Athletes need to prove the source of contamination to prove they are not at fault for doping.
Halep appealed to CAS and came to Lausanne, Switzerland, a month ago for a three-day closed-door hearing.
The court said the judge dismissed the blood value charges against Halep and handed down the verdict “as soon as practicable” without waiting for the submission of lengthy documents detailing all the reasons.
“Although the CAS panel found that Ms. Halep did bear a degree of fault or negligence for her breach because she failed to exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she was not at gross fault or negligence. Negligence,” the court said.
The case was heard by three of the court’s most respected judges. The panel’s chair, Australia’s Annabelle Bennett, also oversaw a case brought by two-time Olympic running champion Caster Semenya that was later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
US lawyer Jeffrey Benz was part of the Beijing 2022 CAS panel that allowed 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva to continue competing despite a Tested positive before. Valieva was later suspended for four years by another group.
German law professor Ulrich Haas has advised the World Anti-Doping Agency and is one of the judges most nominated by all CAS parties.
Halep can revive a stalled career, with the former world No. 1 ranked No. 1,138 at the start of the 2023 U.S. Open.
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