The International Tennis Integrity Agency’s (Itia) handling of the doping case involving five-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek has sparked a lot of criticism in the tennis industry. Itia temporarily suspended the 23-year-old Polish woman for 22 days after she tested positive for the doping drug trimezatedine (TMZ) on August 12th this year. According to Swiatek’s explanations, she rated her offense as not serious and only imposed a ban of one month; The second in the world rankings has already accepted this and served it retroactively.
Swiatek stated that he had taken a sleeping pill purchased in Poland that was unknowingly contaminated with TMZ. Tests apparently confirmed this. TMZ is used, for example, to treat circulatory problems in the heart. The drug was already at the center of the doping scandal surrounding China’s swimmers around seven months ago.
:She can play again immediately
Surprising turnaround in a complex doping case: The International Court of Arbitration for Sports reduced Simona Halep’s four-year ban to nine months. The Romanian has now served her sentence – and wants to return to the tennis tour.
“The excuse we can all use is that we didn’t know. Just didn’t know. Professional athletes at the highest level can now simply say: We didn’t know,” wrote tennis professional Nick Kyrgios on
The German player Eva Lys also criticized the outcome of the proceedings. “I’m starting to think that not everyone gets the same treatment,” commented the 22-year-old on X: “There are a lot of lower ranked players who don’t get the same treatment as higher ranked players. I’m not saying anyone is innocent or not, I’m saying everyone deserves equal opportunities.”
The International Tennis Integrity Agency is accused of a lack of transparency
The background to the criticism is that other professionals in similar doping cases were either sanctioned much more harshly or had to wait significantly longer for their case to be clarified. Sometimes both were true, as former world number one Simona Halep found out. The Romanian was tested for the banned substance roxadustat in autumn 2022 and was provisionally suspended; It was only around a year later that the Itia imposed a ban of four years. The International Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) ultimately reduced this to nine months in March 2024, meaning Halep was immediately eligible to play again. “I stand there and ask myself why there are such big differences in treatment and assessment,” Halep wrote on Instagram: “I can’t find a logical answer and I don’t think there can be one either.” She assumed itia “ malicious intent.”
Another case, which Lys took up again, raises the suspicion of unequal treatment in doping cases. “What about players who ate contaminated meat in South America? “Why wasn’t Tara Moore suspended for a month?” Lys asked. The British woman was also temporarily suspended after a positive test in 2022, but was only acquitted 19 months later. Moore called on the main tennis organizations to “examine the Itia and its procedures to achieve a more fair/open approach”.
Itia is also accused of a lack of transparency; in the case of Sinner and Swiatek, the public only found out about their doping cases after the verdict was announced. The Itia, which is behind the men’s (ATP) and women’s (WTA) professional tours, the world association (ITF) and the four Grand Slam tournaments, relies on the rule of only publishing statements on doping cases when a case has occurred was heard in court. It is obvious that the tennis tours have no great interest in publicly disclosing doping cases involving top players. Seen in this light, it was not surprising that last Wednesday the WTA published a list of names that had been put forward for election as Player of the Year. Iga Swiatek, who won the French Open in early June, is on the list.
