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Simona Halep has finally broken her silence over her ongoing doping suspension, almost seven months after the beginning of the saga.
In October 2022, following her first-round exit from the US Open, Halep was handed a provisional suspension by the International Tennis Integrity Agency for testing positive for Roxadustat. In the months since, the former World No. 1 has been silent about the issue - until Thursday, when she appeared for an exclusive interview with Tennis Majors.
Halep revealed that at first she had no clue how to handle the situation, especially since she didn't even know what Roxadustat was. The Romanian claimed she had to go online and find out more about the substance in order to connect the dots.
"It was a shock. I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what Roxadustat was. I’ve never heard about it before. I went online a little bit to find out something about it," Simona Halep said. "I understood it was a big banned substance."
Probed on how she thought the substance could have entered her body, the 31-year-old speculated that it might have been a "supplement contamination." That was the explanation given to her by the independent experts she contracted to help her make sense of the situation.
"I’ve always been careful to check all the components from the supplements [I take] to make sure that everything is authorised. I had no clue at the beginning about where this substance came from. And then I just wanted to ask the experts to explain to me how this happened and where it was coming from," Halep said.
"As I said, I had never heard about it so I didn’t know how I could take it, and actually how it could be in my urine. After a lot of work, they found out that there was a contamination, a supplement contamination, and that’s why the quantity was so so low in my body," she added.
Because the quantity of Roxadustat in her body was very low, the experts (whose names Halep did not divulge) assured her that it had to be a contamination. They claimed that the company which manufactured one of her authorized supplements made a mistake by including it in their production process.
"A contamination is when someone takes an authorised supplement, but the company who sells it makes a mistake, and there’s a very low quantity of substance that should not be in there. The experts have worked a lot to find the reason of this contamination and they found out that the supplement was contaminated with a very low quantity of substance," Simona Halep said.
When asked about the possibility of her suspension coming to an end any time soon, the two-time Grand Slam champion expressed dissatisfaction with the ITF and its apparant inaction on the matter.
Halep is frustrated by the fact that the hearing, currently scheduled for May 28, is still not guaranteed to take place. She doesn't understand why she has had to spend almost eight months on the sidelines without even getting a shot at justice; that is one of the reasons she has decided to speak about the issue now.
Halep had initially planned to remain silent until the case was solved, but the emotional toll has become too much to bear for the former World No. 1. She also believes she owes it to her fans to update them on the situation.
"The next step is a hearing at the end of May, the 28th, but it is very fragile because the ITF said that they might cancel it as well. If they do that, it will be almost eight months since I’ve been provisionally suspended for the first time and I believe that it’s not fair to spend eight months without even being judged by the Tribunal," Simona Halep said.
"Emotionally, the whole period has not been easy and I just felt the need to speak out loud to my fans, to my supporters, and actually to the whole public. I’m sure they really want to know what’s going on and why it’s taking so long. I wanted to remain silent until the case was solved but it’s too heavy, so I felt that it would be really good for me to speak about it out loud," she added.
Simona Halep reveals she has been tested 10 times since October 2022
Simona Halep further revealed in the interview that since the announcement of her provisional suspension in October last year, she has been tested 10 times - all of which have come back negative.
"I was notified in October that my urine test in August was positive. Since then, I’ve had 10 tests in a row and all of them were negative, and it was blood and urine at the same time," Simona Halep said.
With such circumstantial evidence in her favor, the former World No. 1 hopes the situation will resolve itself soon. However, she questioned again how much longer she'll have to wait before she hears anything.
"It’s been seven months since I’ve been originally suspended even though I’ve had all the evidence since December. I’m not asking for special treatment. I just ask to be judged. How much longer is this going to take?" Simona Halep said.
