Tested positive for trimetazidine and suspended for a month, world number 2 Iga Swiatek returned to competition at the end of the 2024 season. Guest of Caroline Garcia’s podcast, the Pole returned to one of the hardest episodes of her career.
Iga Swiatek has surely just experienced one of the most difficult periods of her career. The five-time Grand Slam winner, three-time title holder at Roland-Garros, was suspended for one month by the ITIA after testing positive for trimetazidine – a sanction she accepted – last August during a test carried out out of competition when she was at the top of world women’s Tennis. Deprived of an Asian tour and falling back to second place in the WTA, the Pole was able to participate in the end-of-season Masters and the Billie Jean King Cup before the announcement of her positive test, while the duration of her sanction was almost at its end.
Now free of her suspension, the 23-year-old player has resumed the course of her career, even if this affair continues to pursue her. “It touched my personal side because I thought everyone was going to turn their back on me and I had no idea what was happening,” she explained in the Tennis Insider Club, Caroline’s podcast Garcia. “It was so chaotic, I didn’t know if it was going to take two years, three months or something else. You can be at peace with yourself thinking you didn’t do anything wrong, but no one treats you really like that. Especially people who chase you, even when you tell the truth, you feel like they treat you like a liar.”
After analyzes carried out by several laboratories, Swiatek was able to prove that the contamination came from a regulated medication based on melatonin purchased in Poland and used by the player to manage jet lag and sleep disorders. The ITIA thus considered that the Pole had not committed an intentional fault and that her level of negligence was low.
A difference in treatment that makes people talk
“I’ve fought so hard for everything I’ve gotten over the last few years, what if people were literally going to, in their minds, take that away from me? What if they were going to look at me differently? I was at home in at the time (when the affair was revealed) and there were always people coming for autographs or for a selfie and I was like, are you going to do this in a month? Was it difficult? but I couldn’t say anything so I’m glad that. It’s over,” she continued.
The revelation of Iga Swiatek’s positive test, which came a few months after that of the other world number one, Jannik Sinner, sparked a wave of criticism from the tennis world. Many players have notably denounced the way the International Tennis Integrity Agency operates and the lack of transparency it can sometimes demonstrate.
For her part, the world number 2 started her season in Australia, where she reached the final of the United Cup with Poland, beaten by the United States of Coco Gauff, who won her duel against the Pole in Sydney . The bronze medalist from the 2024 Paris Olympics is now focusing on the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the season, a tournament of which she reached the semi-finals in 2022.
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