Simona Halep may have won her doping ban appeal case and returned to tennis but admits that behind her everything that happened definitely won’t be something easy.
After being provisionally suspended in 2022 October over the allegations that banned substance Roxadustat was found in her system, Halep spent the next year and a half trying to prove her innocence. Last May, it got even tougher for Halep when the ITIA announced that she was being hit with a second anti-doping violation over “irregularities in her athlete biological passport.”
In September, Halep received a four-year doping ban, which meant she would not be allowed to return to tennis until 2026 October. But Halep appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – and after being heard between February 07-09 – it was announced on March 5th that her appeal case was successful and that her ban was cut from four years to nine months.
Two weeks after being cleared to immediately return to tennis, Halep played at the Miami Open – that was her first tournament since the 2022 US Open.
Halep, now 32, felt a major relief after winning her appeal case but she lost a year and a half of competing – her reputation got tarnished – and she dealt with a lot of stress and her mental health was very…
