Five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a heart medication known as TMZ, the International Tennis Integrity Agency announced Thursday.
Swiatek failed an out-of-competition doping test in August, and the ITIA accepted his explanation that the result was unintentional and caused by contamination of an over-the-counter drug, melatonin, which Swiatek was taking for jet lag problems and sleep.
His level of fault was determined to be “at the lower end of the range of no significant fault or negligence”, the ITIA said.
“This experience, the most difficult of my life so far, taught me a lot,” Swiatek, a 23-year-old Pole, said in a statement. video she posted on social media.
“All of this will definitely stay with me for the rest of my life. It took me a long time to return to training after the situation almost broke my heart, so there were a lot of tears and a lot of sleepless nights,” said Swiatek, speaking in Polish with an English translation scrolling at the top of the message. “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.
This is the second recent high-profile case of doping in tennis: the top-ranked man, Jannik sinnerfailed two tests for a steroid in March and was cleared in August, just before the start of the US Open, which he won for his second Grand Slam title of the season. Sinner has not missed a single competition; THE The World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the decision this exonerated him.
Swiatek reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings for the first time in April 2022, and she has remained there most of the time since, but she now sits in second place after being overtaken by Aryna Sabalenka in October.
Swiatek won the French Open in June for his fourth title there and fifth major championship overall, then won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics early August.
“The WTA fully supports Iga during this difficult time. 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,” said the women’s tennis circuit in a press release. “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 check the safety and compliance of all products they use, as even unintentional exposure to prohibited substances can have significant consequences.
Swiatek officially admitted the anti-doping rule violation on Wednesday 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.
Swiatek 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 “all my traveling, jet lag and work-related stress mean that sometimes without it I couldn’t fall asleep.”
She was already provisionally suspended from September 22 to October 4, missing three tournaments during the post-US Open hard-court swing in Asia – the Korea Open, the China Open and the Wuhan Open.
That interim ban ended after his appeal showed his test result inadvertently came from contaminated melatonin.
Because 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 starting December 4.
“I can start my new season with a clean slate, focusing on what I’ve always done: simply playing tennis,” said Swiatek, who hired Wim Fissette as coach in October.
Swiatek was also fined $158,944 that she won for her semifinal at the Cincinnati Open in August, the event immediately after the positive test.
“Once the origin of TMZ was established, it became clear that this was a very unusual case of a contaminated product, which is a regulated medicine in Poland. However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medicine in one country cannot in itself be enough to avoid any level of misconduct,” said Karen Moorhouse, CEO of ITIA.
“Given the nature of the drug and all the circumstances, that puts this misconduct at the low end of the scale,” Moorhouse said. “This case is an important reminder for tennis players of the nature of the strict liability of the World Anti-Doping Code and the importance of players carefully considering the use of supplements and medications.
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