Five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance, but she will be able to play at the Australian Open in January.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced that Świątek tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication known as TMZ, during an out-of-competition doping test in August.
The ITIA accepted his explanation that the result was unintentional and was due to contamination of an over-the-counter medication, melatonin, which Świątek was taking for jet lag and sleep problems.
His level of fault was determined to be “at the lower end of the range of no significant fault or negligence”, according to the ITIA.
World number two Świątek said in a video she posted on social media that it was “the worst experience of my life.”
“All of this will definitely stay with me for the rest of my life,” the 23-year-old said, speaking in Polish with English subtitles.
“It took me a long time to get back into training after the situation almost broke my heart, so there were a lot of tears and a lot of sleepless nights.
“The worst part was the uncertainty. I didn’t know what was going to happen in my career, how things would end or if I would be allowed to play tennis.”
The Women’s Tennis Federation (WTA) said it “fully supports” Świątek.
“Iga has always demonstrated a strong commitment to fair play and respect for the principles of clean sport, and this unfortunate incident highlights the challenges athletes face in the use of medications and supplements,” the women’s tour said in a statement.
“The WTA remains steadfast in its support of clean sport and the rigorous processes that protect the integrity of competition. We also emphasize that athletes must take every precaution to verify the safety and compliance of all products they use, as even unintentional exposure to prohibited substances can have significant consequences.”
Świątek officially admitted the anti-doping rule violation this week and accepted his sanction.
TMZ is the drug at the center of the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
Świątek said she was “shocked” by her test result and had never heard of TMZ.
She said she’s been using melatonin “for a long time,” adding that she can’t sleep without it because of “all my traveling, jet lag and work-related stress.”
She was previously provisionally suspended from September 12 to October 4, missing three tournaments during the post-US Open hard-court swing in Asia, but that interim ban was lifted after her appeal showed her test result inadvertently came from contaminated melatonin.
Given that the final agreement included a one-month suspension, she will now serve the remaining eight days, while there is no competition, and will be allowed to return to play from December 4, in time for the start of the 2025 season in Australia later that month.
“I can start my new season with a clean slate, focusing on what I have always done: simply playing tennis,” said Świątek, who hired Wim Fissette as coach in October.
Świątek was also fined $158,944 which she won for her semifinal at the Cincinnati Open in August, the event immediately after the positive test.
This is the second recent high-profile case of doping in tennis after Men’s world number one Jannik Sinner failed two steroid tests in March and was cleared in August, just before the start of the US Open.
Sinner won the Grand Slam in New York and did not miss a single competition, although the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the decision which exonerated him.
P.A.
