Maria Sharapova will be provisionally suspended from tennis after the five-time Grand Slam winner revealed she failed a drugs test at this year’s Australian Open.
The 28-year-old Russian tested positive for a substance called meldonium following her quarter-final defeat against American Serena Williams in January.
Meldonium, which Sharapova said she had legally taken throughout her career, was placed on the banned list by the World Doping Anti-Agency (WADA) at the beginning of the year, having been part of its monitoring program throughout 2015.
Sharapova claimed she did not realise the substance was illegal, but took “full responsibility” for her actions. The ITF said Sharapova, who now faces a ban from the sport, had been informed of the positive test on March 2 and she will be provisionally suspended from March 12.
However, Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian Tennis Federation, told Russian news agency TASS he expected Sharapova to be available for this summer’s Rio Olympics after describing the positive test as “nonsense”.
Sharapova was dressed all in black as she made the shocking revelation at a pre-arranged press conference at a downtown Los Angeles hotel on Monday.
She said: “I let my fans down, I let the sport down that I have been playing since the age of four and I love so deeply.
“I know with this I face consequences and I don’t want to end my career this way and I really hope I will be given another chance to play this game.”
Sharapova claimed she was prescribed meldonium, also known as mildronate, by her doctor in 2006 to deal with health issues such as an irregular heartbeat and a history of diabetes in her family.
But the substance was added to the banned list on January 1 of this year because WADA said there was “evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance”.
Sharapova added: “For the past 10 years I have been given a medicine called mildronate by my family doctor and a few days ago after I received the ITF letter I found out that it also has another name of meldonium which I did not know.
“It is very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on WADA’s banned list and I had legally been taking the medicine for the past 10 years.
“But on January 1st the rules had changed and meldonium became a prohibited substance which I had not known. I failed the test and I take full responsibility for it.”
The Russian added that she received a letter from WADA in December to inform her of the prohibited substances for 2016, but admitted she did not look at the list.
Sharapova said she did not know the extent of the action she will now face from the ITF, but Tarpishchev told TASS he expects the 28-year-old to be available to represent her country in Rio.
“I think that it’s nonsense,” Tarpishchev said. “Athletes take what their physiotherapists advise them. I believe that Sharapova will still have a chance to play at the Olympics though we will see how things are going to develop.”
Russia are currently banned from international athletics competitions by the IAAF following a string of doping offences.
Ahead of the news conference in Los Angeles, Sharapova’s team said there would be a “major announcement” – leading to suggestions the Russian may announce her retirement from the sport.
“I know many of you thought I was retiring but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would probably not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet,” she said at the press conference.
Sharapova won her first grand slam as a 17-year-old at Wimbledon in 2004 and has since landed the 2006 US Open title, the 2008 Australian Open and the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014
The highest-paid female athlete in world sport for the last 11 years, according to Forbes, Sharapova has earned a large part of her income through sponsor endorsements and has her own sweet business, Sugarpova.
Steve Simon, chief executive for the WTA, said: “I am very saddened to hear this news about Maria. Maria is a leader and I have always known her to be a woman of great integrity.
“Nevertheless, as Maria acknowledged, it is every player’s responsibility to know what they put in their body and to know if it is permissible.
“This matter is now in the hands of the Tennis Anti-Doping Program and its standard procedures. The WTA will support the decisions reached through this process.”
Here, we take a look at the substance involved.
:: Meldonium is also known as Mildronate, the name by which Sharapova knew the drug having taken it since 2006.
:: It is commonly used to treat angina, other heart problems and diabetes. Sharapova referred to a family history of diabetes during her announcement.
:: Meldonium was only added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list from the start of 2016. However, it had been on the organisation’s monitoring programme throughout 2015.
:: A WADA spokesman wrote on Twitter on Monday that: “Meldonium was added to Prohibited List because of evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance.” Studies have indicated the drug can increase an individual’s capacity for physical exertion.
:: The drug is manufactured by Latvian company Grindeks and widely exported to Sharapova’s homeland of Russia and several neighbouring countries. However, it is not approved for use in the United States, where the tennis player has her base.
:: Sharapova was the second Russian sportswoman to announce a positive test for meldonium on Monday. Figure skater Ekaterina Bobrova confirmed to Russian agency R-Sport that she had tested positive at January’s European Championships, and was ruled out of the World Championships as a result.
Maria Sharapova shocked the sporting world by announcing at a press conference in Los Angeles on Monday she had failed a drugs test at the Australian Open.
The five-time grand slam champion has not yet been told what sanction she faces but has accepted a provisional ban.
Here, Press Association Sport looks at other high-profile doping cases in tennis.
MARIN CILIC
The Croatian was given a nine-month ban in 2013 after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said traces of banned stimulant nikethamide were found in a sample he gave at a tournament in Munich. Cilic claimed the failed test was a result of taking over-the-counter glucose tablets, but argued only a by-product of the banned substance had been found. He took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the ban was reduced to four months. Cilic won his first grand slam title at the US Open the following year.
VIKTOR TROICKI
Another recent and controversial case. Troicki refused to take a blood test at a tournament in Monte Carlo in 2013, claiming he was feeling unwell and had a phobia of needles. He was banned for 18 months, reduced to 12 on an appeal to CAS. Troicki vociferously maintained his innocence, claiming he had been told by the doping control officer he could take the test the following day. Novak Djokovic spoke out in impassioned defence of his friend, calling it an injustice and claiming he had lost faith in the system.
RICHARD GASQUET
Gasquet tested positive for cocaine in 2009 and was banned for 12 months by the ITF. He also took his case to CAS and successfully argued that he had ingested the substance inadvertently after kissing a woman in a nightclub. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.
ANDRE AGASSI
Agassi made the shocking revelation in his post-retirement autobiography that he failed a test in 1997 after taking crystal meth and then lied to tennis authorities to escape punishment. He told the ATP in a letter he had taken the drug accidentally. The governing body believed him and the failed test remained a secret for the rest of Agassi’s playing career.
GREG RUSEDSKI
The former British number one was among a number of players to test positive for the steroid nandrolone in 2003. He was cleared of wrongdoing after a tribunal ruled he, along with the other players, had taken the drug inadvertently in contaminated pills handed out by ATP trainers.
MARTINA HINGIS
Having initially retired in 2003 at the age of 22, Hingis returned to tennis two years later only for her comeback to be abruptly ended in 2007 by a positive test for a metabolite of cocaine at Wimbledon. She was suspended from tennis for two years but made another comeback in 2013 and is now ranked number one in the world in doubles.
WAYNE ODESNIK
Probably tennis’ most notorious doping offender. In March 2010, the American pleaded guilty to importing human growth hormone into Australia and was suspended for two years. The ban was later reduced to one year after the ITF said he had fully cooperated with its investigations. Odesnik became something of a pariah and was banned for 15 years in March last year after a second offence, this time testing positive for a number of banned substances, including steroids.
