Simona Halep will be allowed to return to tennis with immediate effect after her ban from tennis was reduced from four years to nine months.
In October 2022, Halep was banned from tennis after testing positive for Roxadustat as well as there being complications with her Athlete Biological Passport.
The original ban for Halep was a four year ban and over the past couple of years, the Romanian has tried to appeal the decision with the Court Of Arbitration Of Sport.
In February of this year, the former Roland Garros and Wimbledon champion was allowed to give evidence as she looked to clear her reputation.
Now after an appeal CAS have officially reduced her ban from four years to nine months therefore allowing Halep to return with immediate effect as her ban would have ended last July.
Here is what the Court Of Arbitration For Sport said in a press release, “The CAS Panel has unanimously determined that the four-year period of ineligibility imposed by the ITF Independent Tribunal is to be reduced to a period of ineligibility of nine (9) months starting on 7 October 2022, which period expired on 6 July 2023,” the official hearing said.
“As that period expired before the appeal procedures were even lodged with the CAS, the CAS Panel has determined it appropriate to issue the operative part of the Arbitral Award as soon as practicable, together with a comprehensive media release.
“The CAS Panel has also ordered the disqualification of all competitive results achieved by Ms. Halep from 29 August 2022 (the date of her positive sample) to 7 October 2022, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize money. Therefore, the appeal filed by the ITIA is dismissed and the appeal filed by Simona Halep is partially upheld (her request to backdate the start of the suspension on 29 August 2022 is dismissed).”
Now we await a response from Halep as she will now want to get back to competitive action as soon as possible.
The Romanian’s last tournament was at the US Open 2022 where she lost in the opening round to Daria Snigur in three sets.
