Simona Halep concedes CAS appeal failure would spell the end of her career

James Richardson 15 Dec 2023 4:39 PM

Simona halep attends a press conference

Simona Halep has stepped up efforts to clear her name as she gets ready to take her case to a new platform.

Halep has now turned to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and hopes to get a better outcome than her battle with the International Tennis Integrity Agency.

She has maintained that the evidence supports her defence of contamination versus the verdict of intentional doping on the part of Halep.

“Three days before the positive urine test, I was negative in blood and urine. So I’ve been told at the beginning that it’s a very, it’s an extremely low quantity of this substance, a banned substance, and in those three days I could not have doped,” Halep told Euronews.

“It was not my intention and never has been the intention to do something wrong or something disrespectful to this sport, because I have respected everything and I dedicated my life. My principles are not like this, so I didn’t think to cheat in tennis. The two things that… The contamination, I think it’s very strong for me. And the second one, the blood, I had many, many tests and all of them were negative. So they never found anything wrong in my blood. So with these two things, I feel confident going and facing CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport).”

Halep says that her world has been turned upside down, and she is fixated on clearing her name to end this nightmare.

“Every day it felt very painful, very emotional, hurtful because I know I didn’t do anything wrong, and I know I’m clean,” Halep said.

“So it was a shock when I received the letter that my urine test, only the urine test came out positive, with actually an extremely low quantity of substance, banned substance. I’ve been always against doping and you know, I’ve been loud as well about this, so it didn’t even cross my mind in my whole life to do something like this. So it was a shock. I struggled with the emotional part because it’s been very heavy on my shoulders and seeing this so much in the public, it was really affecting my mental health, for sure.”

Halep conceded that if the CAS decision goes against her it will be the end of her career.

“I think so, yeah, because four years is going to be a lot, for my age at least,” Halep said when the question was put to her.

“And for an athlete who has done this thing every day for 25 years and dedicated their life to tennis and to sport I don’t know how it’s going to be, but it’s catastrophic if it’s going to be four years, and I don’t know how I will handle it. Probably, it’s going to be the end of my career, yes. And for something that I didn’t do and that is not my fault, it’s even more catastrophic.”

Halep will have to serve that four year ban if CAS doesn’t return a decision that is favourable to the former world No 1.