Iga Swiatek Reveals How Much Money She Spent To Prove Her Innocence
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Iga Swiatek had to prove her innocence in her doping case, and that cost her plenty of money, as she recently revealed.
Doping cases are not easy for athletes, as they require a lot of patience, sleepless nights, and money. While most athletes can deal with the first two obstacles, the third one is impossible to overcome for many.
Having tens of thousands of dollars to prove innocence isn't something that every athlete can afford, but in Iga Swiatek's case, it wasn't a problem.
After she accepted a one-month suspension, which has already been completed, she started talking more about the process and what happened shortly after she tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ).
Speaking during the show Fakty po Faktach on Polish TVN24, the World No. 2 player detailed how she learned about the positive doping test, admitting that she couldn't hold back her tears.
"My reaction was very violent. It was a mixture of incomprehension and panic. There was a lot of crying. We get a notification by email and by text message when there is a problem or when we need to complete something in the documents."
"I opened the email and thought it was a notification that players automatically get when they have to do something. But this time it turned out that the email was much more serious. Generally, I wasn’t able to read it to the end, because I was already drenched in tears."
"My managers said that my reaction was as if someone had died or something serious had happened to my health. I’m glad I wasn’t alone, because I was able to hand them the phone and show them what happened."
Luckily for her, Swiatek quickly realized that it wasn't time to shed tears but instead focus on trying to prove her innocence, which is why she immediately went on to hire a specialized lawyer from the United States.
"A few hours after I found out, we all met and had a brainstorming session. I hired a lawyer from the [United] States who specialized in such cases. The fact that I had already earned a lot of money and could afford to spend it on my defense without even blinking an eye has definitely helped."
"I know that many athletes do not have such opportunities and I think this is something that may hold them back, because I actually paid for the entire process."
Swiatek was honest about the fact that essentially being a multi-millionaire certainly helped her to make the process more simple and less painful, given her privileged position.
Throughout her tennis career, the Polish player earned $33,141,991 in prize money, placing in the Top 8 of the all-time earners on the WTA Tour.
On top of that, she earned tens of millions of dollars on sponsorships, as she was the third highest-paid female athlete in 2024, with an estimated earnings of $21.4 million.
The Polish player admitted that the lawyer cost her about $70,000, with additional costs for different expert opinions and tests, which were needed as well. On top of that, she also lost the prize money earned at the Cincinnati Open, which was $158,944 for reaching the semi-finals.
"I spent about $70,000 on a lawyer, €15,000 on expert opinions and tests. On top of that, there was also the loss of the financial prize for Cincinnati, but – to be honest – it didn’t matter to me. The most important thing was to prove my innocence."
"I give these amounts in order to make people realise the problems faced by athletes who don’t make as much money as I do on the court and play sports in which salaries are much lower."
