Tennis Pro Varvara Lepchenko’s Doping Ban Cut To 21 months

As part of a deal with the International Tennis Federation, Varvara Lepchenko, a former top-20 tennis player and US Olympian, had her doping ban cut from four years to 21 months.

After Lepchenko appealed her suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the two sides came to a deal.

The agreement was signed in October, approved by CAS on Tuesday, and made public on Friday by the ITF. The World Anti-Doping Agency also approved it.

The stimulant was found in Lepchenko’s urine sample following a first-round loss at the Hungarian Grand Prix in July 2021. Then she competed in three more events and won a title in Charleston, South Carolina. She was then temporarily banned from competing for four years, starting in August 2021.

Her appeal to CAS was based on her later discovery, in a travel bag, of a bottle of capsules containing the substance for which she tested positive — an ingredient not listed on the bottle label.

Tennis Pro Gets Changed With 12 Months

According to a news release from the ITF on Friday, Lepchenko and the ITF agreed that she broke the rules and will not be able to compete for 21 months. Her ban will start in August 2021, which is when her last match was, and end this May.

“Varvara is relieved that, after a lengthy investigation, she was able to establish that her positive test was caused by a contaminated supplement that did not disclose the presence of the banned substance on its label,” Lepchenko’s lawyer, Howard Jacobs, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Tennis “She is excited to return to the WTA Tour in May.”

This was Lepchenko’s second doping case, but the ITF treated it as if it were her first because she was found not to be at fault in her previous case, in which she tested positive for meldonium, the heart medication that led to Maria Sharapova’s doping ban.

She Won Over 5 Million In Prize Money

Lepchenko, 36, has competed for the US in the Olympics and the Billie Jean King Cup.

She has won over $5 million in prize money and peaked at No. 19 in the WTA in 2012. That year, at the French Open, she reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, defeating 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone. In 2015, Lepchenko advanced to the fourth round of the US Open.

Lepchenko was born in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. She and her father and sister later moved to Florida. She was granted political asylum, moved to Pennsylvania in 2003, and became a citizen of the United States in 2011.

SOURCE – (AP)