Swiatek cold on WADA appeal

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — World No. 2 Iga Swiatek said she was ready to put a drugs scandal behind her, insisting there was no reason for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to appeal against her case.

The 23-year-old Pole tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition sample in August when she was ranked number one.

However, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted that the violation was not intentional and she escaped with a one-month sanction that saw her miss three tournaments in Asia and lose her top ranking.

News of the saga only emerged in late November and she will play her first tournament since then at the mixed-teams United Cup in Sydney ahead of the Australian Open next month.

Swiatek said that, while the incident had been “mentally tough,” the public response had been generally positive, allaying fears that she would be ostracized.

“I think people, most of them, are understanding,” the five-time Grand Slam champion said.

“And the ones who read the documents and are aware of how the system works, they know that I had no fault and I had no influence on what was going on.”

“I try to just go on with my life and focus on different things, focus on preparing for the season and on tennis, because this is the best thing you can do after a case like that,” she said.

Her case is similar to that of Italian men’s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner.

He was exonerated by the ITIA for twice testing positive for traces of the steroid clostebol in March. But WADA appealed against the decision in September and he is awaiting the outcome.

Swiatek said she does not anticipate WADA will follow the same path with her.

“I gave every possible evidence and there is not much, honestly, more to do,” she said.

“There is no point in making an appeal in our opinion.”

“But, you know, I guess overall, this whole process was pretty abstract sometimes and hard to understand from a point of view where you don’t think about the law and everything.”

“But honestly, this is about the law and the wording and this kind of stuff. So I’m not expecting an appeal, but I have kind of no influence on what’s going to happen.”

“But I can say from the processes that I went through and how they treated me from the beginning, that it seemed fair for me,” she said.

“I managed to find the source (of the contamination) pretty quickly. That’s why the case closed pretty quickly.”