A week has passed since the Iga Swiatek doping news came to light and Simona Halep says her old demons returned and she "lost my sleep again" because she has a hard time accepting what she believes is a completely different in the handlings of her and the cases of the Pole and Jannik Sinner.
Last Thursday, the ITIA announced that the five-time Grand Slam champion tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) and was given a provisional suspension on September 12th. However, the Pole acted quickly - quickly discovered that non-prescription melatonin pills were the source of contamination - successfully appealed - and her provisional ban ended after just 22 days. And when Swiatek was handed a one-month ban, she only had eight more days to serve of suspension.
In August, it was revealed that Sinner failed two doping tests in March but he was cleared of any wrongdoing and avoided getting banned.
Meanwhile, Halep was suspended for 18 months after testing positive for Roxadustat in 2022 October. Just as in the Swiatek and Sinner cases, it was ultimately accepted that the Romanian was a victim of contamination and that she didn't intentionally or knowingly take a banned substance. But it took the former world No. 1 much longer to clear her name.
"I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgement? 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," Halep wrote in an Instagram post last week after the Swiatek news dropped.
In the same post, the 33-year-old highlighted that "I feel disappointed, I feel mad, I feel frustrated,"
Halep: My case was instantly announced, theirs wasn't until the end...After making it clear on social media that she wasn't happy at all with how the ITIA treated her doping situation compared to Swiatek and Sinner's cases, the two-time Grand Slam champion now admits she has been so "upset" over the last week that it is again negatively impacting her sleep and mental health.
“Big pain, big pain. I felt like they [the ITIA] were unfair to me before, but now it’s even more. I was so, so upset and so sad when I saw the situation. It’s just unacceptable, from my point of view. Yeah, I lost my sleep again. I lost it for the two years during the process [of contesting her own doping ban]. Then I got it back. And now, after [what happened], for a few days, yeah, I lost it again. All the negative thinking, negative thoughts, it’s not easy to handle," Halep told The Telegraph.
Simona Halep© Simona Halep/X - Fair Use
For the Romanian, one of the things that she finds the most hurtful is the fact that the ITIA didn't even announce that Swiatek and Sinner failed a doping test until the investigation was concluded.
“What I believe is not fair, either, is that they announced my case straight away, and I got all the heat from the press, and for these two players they kept it secret, and they just said about the case when everything was done, so it’s very weird. And I asked also to lift the provisional suspension to be able to play. I said, ‘If you believe in the end that I am guilty, you take the points back and all the money and everything, but let me play,’ because I wanted to keep the rhythm. I asked this about two or three times, but now they (Jannik and Iga) could play," Halep added.
Halep highlights the difference between hers and the Swiatek situationAfter being provisionally suspended on September 22, the Pole was banned for 22 days before returning to action at the WTA Finals and the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. When she accepted a one-month ban on November 27th, there were only eight more days left to serve.
While Halep didn't mention Swiatek by the name, she was clearly thinking about her case when arguing why she felt the ITIA wasn't fair to her at all.
“The woman player – I don’t want to give name, you know about who I’m talking about – she had the three-week suspension, then she played two events, and then she gets again suspension. What is this? I mean, I don’t understand. So I feel it is not fair," the 2019 Wimbledon champion noted.
Meanwhile, Halep returned to action in March but played only two tournaments before a knee injury sidelined her for five months. In October, the former world No. 1 returned and played two more events before concluding her 2024 season.
In her comeback year, Halep went 1-4 and is currently ranked at No. 876 in the world.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/lLJfW1a
Tennis
Hello friend's I am Arohi, i write the all type of viral content through my blog's. On my blog's get the latest News about science, tech, health and fitness , news, online earning ideas and more.