ITIA intervened with clarifications two months after Simona Halep received a considerably reduced penalty at CAS and was able to return to the circuit.
In an article published on Wednesday, journalists from BBC question whether the tennis anti-doping system actually catches doped athletes or destroys careers. An example in this regard is the case of Simona Halep, about whom British journalists mention that „she has always maintained her innocence and regularly criticized the process, describing it as torture.”
Even Darren Cahill accused ITIA of making false accusations and called for a real revolution in the field.
In response, ITIA's Executive Director, Karen Moorhouse, rejected the statements made by Darren Cahill and maintained that "everything was done by the book" in Simona Halep's case. However, she acknowledges that the turn of events in Simona Halep's case "raised some correct and important questions."
"We believe that most tennis players are clean and intend to abide by the rules. It is also fair to say that some athletes will choose to cheat, while others may break the rules due to negligence or carelessness," ITIA further conveyed, having conducted 7,247 anti-doping tests in 2023, out of which 13 were failed.
Simona received a 4-year suspension from Sport Resolutions, but this was reduced by CAS to just 9 months.
Considering the slowness of the process, Simona was able to return to the circuit six months after she had actually served her TAS suspension. ITIA was accused of intentionally delaying the case, but the forum's argument is that the dossier had 8,000 pages.