Former World No. 1 on the WTA Tour, Iga Swiatek, accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance.
The 2024 season hasn't been ideal for Swiatek, as she won "only" one Grand Slam title and fell to the World No. 2 position in the WTA Rankings, with Aryna Sabalenka overtaking her.
The Polish player also made a coaching change, parting ways with Tomasz Wiktorowski after three years and hiring Wim Fissette. During this period, Swiatek also missed multiple tournaments, including two WTA 1000 events, the China Open in Beijing and the Wuhan Open.
Initially, it seemed that she wanted to rest, as she complained about the packed schedule multiple times, and she also blamed her Wuhan Open withdrawal on the appointment of a new coach.
Now, however, it is obvious why Swiatek missed those weeks of action. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced on Thursday, November 28th, 2024, that the Polish player tested positive for a banned substance earlier this year.
On August 12th, 2024, Swiatek provided an out-of-competition sample. That was after she won the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics and three days before her first match at the Cincinnati Open.
That sample proved to be positive for trimetazidine (TMZ), which improves the heart muscle's ability to use glucose, and in recent years, multiple athletes were banned after using it as a performance-enhancing drug.
On September 12th, 2024, one month after she provided the sample, Swiatek received a pre-charge notice from the ITIA. Since the 23-year-old player didn't have a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for this drug, she immediately received a provisional suspension, which was imposed on September 12th, 2024.
As a result, she missed the Korea Open in Seoul, held from September 16th to 22nd, the China Open in Beijing, held from September 25th to October 6th, and the Wuhan Open, held from October 7th to 13th.
Those were exactly the three tournaments that she missed during the Asian Swing, and that initially lacked an explanation as to why she chose to skip them.
On September 22nd, Swiatek chose to appeal the provisional suspension, providing an explanation that a non-prescription medicine was contaminated with trimetazidine.
This contamination, as per the ITIA report, was confirmed by the Sports Medicine Research & Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in Utah, United States, which meant that the independent tribunal lifted Swiatek's suspension on October 4th, 2024.
Similarly to Jannik Sinner's controversial doping test, since Swiatek managed to appeal the decision within 10 days of the provisional suspension and her appeal was successful, it was not initially made public.
ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse commented on the case, acknowledging that Swiatek had no significant fault or negligence, which is why she avoided a suspension.
"Once the source of the TMZ had been established, it became clear that this was a highly unusual instance of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated medicine."
"However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medication in one country cannot of itself be sufficient to avoid any level of fault. Taking into account the nature of the medication, and all the circumstances, it does place that fault at the lowest end of the scale."
"This case is an important reminder for tennis players of the strict liability nature of the World Anti-Doping Code and the importance of players carefully considering the use of supplements and medications."
"It is vital that appropriate due diligence takes place to minimise the risk of inadvertent ADRVs such as this. Help and support is available to players and their entourages, both directly through the ITIA, and through other organisations and schemes which check and test products."