An 18-year-old Romanian player, Maria Sara Popa, has accused Patrick Mouratoglou’s tennis academy of administering “substances” to junior players, adding a new layer to the ongoing doping controversy surrounding Simona Halep.
Popa, a rising star who trained at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France when she was 12, claimed that young players at the academy “are given some substances.”
Mouratoglou, known for his work with top tennis stars like Serena Williams, Coco Gauff, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, among others, has been in the spotlight following the doping scandal involving two-time major winner Halep. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) handed Halep a four-year ban for “intentional” doping offenses in September 2023. Halep, coached by Mouratoglou from 2022 until her suspension, has denied knowingly or intentionally using any prohibited substance and has recently appealed the decision.
Mouratoglou took responsibility for providing a contaminated supplement to Halep, stating in a video on his Instagram account in November, “We brought her collagen from a company. This collagen happened to be contaminated. There was no way to know it. But I feel responsible for what happened because it’s my team—so me, basically—who brought her this collagen.”
