Iga Swiatek Doping: Simona Halep Slams ITIA For Double Standards With Regards to Doping Bans

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Former World No.1 Simona Halep on Friday (November 29) slammed the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for their "big difference in treatment and judgment" when handing doping bans.

Halep's reaction comes after the ITIA handed a one-month ban to current world no. 2 Iga Swiatek, who tested positive for a banned substance. Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for trimetazidine (TMZ).

The 33-year-old former Wimbledon and French Open champion Halep had received a four-year ban for two separate anti-doping violation rules, but was cleared to return to tennis earlier this year after her ban was reduced following a Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling.

Now, after Swiatek and Jannik Sinner have received shorter ban, Halep slammed the ITIA for trying to ruin her career, and being partial against her in a lengthy Instagram post.

"I'm sitting and trying to understand, but it's really impossible for me to understand something like this. I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment? I can't find and I don't think there can be a logical answer. It can only be bad will from ITIA, the organization that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence," Simona Halep wrote on Instagram.

"I really wanted to destroy the last years of my career, I wanted something that I could never have imagined would be wanted. I always believed in good, I believed in fairness, I believed in goodness.

"It was painful, is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful. How is it possible that in identical cases happening around the same time ITIA to have completely different approaches to my detriment. How could I accept that the WTA and the players council did not want to return me the ranking that I deserved?!" Halep said.

"I lost two years of my career, I lost many nights when I couldn't sleep, thoughts, anxiety, questions without answers... but I won justice. It turned out that it was a contamination and that the biological passport was a pure invention. And I won something else, my soul remained clean!!

"I feel disappointed, I feel mad, I feel frustrated, but I do not feel evil even now. I am grateful for the support and unconditional love of those who have been by my side every day. THANK YOU! In all the naughtiness, I also received love because those who offered me love in those moments really knew me!

"Perhaps this is the biggest victory! As we know well that every morning the sun rises for everyone, but it's good to rise finding yourself with a flawless soul! And that's how I am, packed and proud of what I am!" concluded Halep.