Australian Max Purcell, a two-time Grand Slam doubles winner, has been provisionally suspended for violating anti-doping regulations and is expected to miss the Australian Open in January, the International Tennis Integrity Agency announced on Monday ( Itia).
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Ranked 12th in the world in doubles, the 26-year-old admitted to having used a “prohibited method” and “requested a provisional suspension on December 10,” specifies Itia without giving further details on the offense.
The sanction began on December 12 while awaiting the conclusions of the investigation and a decision on the penalty, adds the Agency.
In a message posted on social networks, Purcell explains having “received vitamins intravenously and unknowingly exceeded the 100 ml limit”.
“I was absolutely convinced that I had done everything according to the WADA regulations and methods [l’Agence mondiale antidopage]“, he adds, saying he is “devastated”.
Purcell won Wimbledon 2022 alongside his compatriot Matt Ebden, then the 2023 US Open alongside Jordan Thompson, also Australian.
The Australian Tennis Federation (TA) insisted that the suspension “was not linked to the use of a doping product but rather to a prohibited method”.
This year, Itia sanctioned world number 1 Jannik Sinner and world number 2 Iga Swiatek for doping.
The Italian, briefly suspended twice, was then cleared by Itia, but remains subject to an appeal filed by WADA. Infinitesimal traces of clostebol (anabolic) were found in his body and he pleads negligence.
The Polish woman, who tested positive in August for trimetazidine, the product for which Russian skater Kamila Valieva was suspended for four years but whose doping effects remain uncertain in the scientific literature, also pleaded negligence and was suspended for one month.
