Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Vaughn Ridley / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP 00:03 a.m., May 25, 2023

Suspended for eight months, former tennis No. 1 Simona Halep has accused the governing bodies of "killing" her career as well as her reputation. While awaiting trial, the player is accused of doping after testing positive for a banned substance.

"They are killing not only my reputation, but also my career": former world tennis No. 1 Simona Halep, suspended for nearly eight months for anti-doping rule violations, on Wednesday accused anti-doping bodies of harming her by delaying the examination of her case. The 31-year-old, winner of Roland Garros in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, has been provisionally suspended since October 7 after testing positive at the US Open in August.

This banned molecule stimulates the production of red blood cells and is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Halep faces up to four years of suspension in this first case. But she assures that experts have demonstrated that this banned substance had ended up in her body as a result of contamination of a dietary supplement and protests her innocence, demanding to be heard.

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"I'm waiting to be judged"

She had mentioned at the end of April a possible hearing on May 28. But, she wrote Wednesday night in a message posted on her social networks, "the ITF (ITIA) (International Agency for Tennis Integrity which acts by delegation of the International Tennis Federation) has again and for the third time postponed my hearing by a month." "I have been waiting to be tried since last October (...) I asked, as provided for by the anti-doping rules, a quick hearing, it's my right, it's written in the rules, "continues the one who is still 34th in the WTA world ranking.

In the meantime, she observes, she has not been able to play the Australian Open and will miss the France Open at Roland Garros, which begins Sunday, then Wimbledon (July 3-16). "The ITF's (ITIA) disregard for the rules on the speedy hearing that I am entitled to get is such a mark of contempt for me that I have no words," she concluded. No comment could immediately be obtained from the ITIA, which had announced on Friday that Simona Halep was under a new case in connection with "irregularities" in the data of her biological passport, a separate violation of the case that led to her provisional suspension. Halep then denounced a form of "harassment" against her.