Simona Halep wasn't happy to find out how Iga Swiatek's doping case was handled after she had to go through a brutally long and painful process.
Only a couple of years ago, in 2022, the tennis world was stunned to learn that former World No. 1 on the WTA Tour, Simona Halep, tested positive for a banned substance, receiving a suspension from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
Like any tennis player who didn't intentionally dope, she wanted to clear the situation and appealed the suspension. In her case, however, that wasn't enough, as the ITIA upheld the ban.
The Romanian player then had to go through the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to prove her innocence, eventually having her four-year ban reduced to only nine months, which allowed her to immediately return to competition.
The whole process took more than 16 months, and she spoke multiple times about how incredibly demanding it was for her to deal with everything.
Now, almost nine months after she received the positive news, two other players that reached the World No. 1 rank, as she did, Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek, had their own doping cases, with both handled totally differently than her case.
Sinner got away without any suspension, even though his case was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), while Swiatek received a one-month suspension, which she served during three tournaments during the Asian Swing.
Compared to her brutally long case, Halep felt like these two players were not treated the same as she was. After Swiatek's case was made public, the Romanian player released a statement on social media, calling out the difference in the treatment.
"I'm sitting and trying to understand, but it's really impossible for me to understand something like this. I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment? I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer."
Halep couldn't see any logical conclusion as to why she had to wait for so long and basically have her career cut shorter, and other players, such as Swiatek and Jannik Sinner, had a completely different treatment.
Because of that, she wasn't able to draw another conclusion than thinking that the ITIA wanted to "destroy her" despite having evidence of her innocence.
"It can only be bad will from ITIA, the organization that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence. They really wanted to destroy the last years of my career, they wanted something that I could never have imagined that could be wanted."
"I always believed in good, I believed in the fairness of this sport, I believed in goodness. It was painful, is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful."
One thing that Halep couldn't understand was that, in her eyes, the two cases were identical, and while she had to go through many sleepless nights and months and months of draining processes, Swiatek, technically, was allowed to continue competing.
"How is it possible that in identical cases happening around the same time ITIA to have completely different approaches to my detriment. How could I accept that the WTA and the players council did not want to return me the ranking that I deserved?!"
"I lost two years of my career, I lost many nights when I couldn’t sleep, thoughts, anxiety, questions without answers... but I won justice. It turned out that it was a contamination and that the biological passport was a pure invention. And I won something else, my soul remained clean!! I feel disappointment, I feel sorrow, I feel frustration, but I don't feel malice even now."
Although disappointed by the different handling of her and Swiatek's case, Halep also found the positive side of the story. The fans who stood by her and supported her every day showed her how many loved her, and that's something that she feels proud of.
"I am grateful for the support and unconditional love of those who have been by my side every day. THANK YOU! In all the naughtiness, I also received love because those who offered me love in those moments really knew me! Perhaps this is the biggest victory!"
"As we know well that every morning the sun rises for everyone, but it’s good to rise finding yourself with a flawless soul! And that's how I am, packed and proud of what I am!"