Simona Halep Cleared for Immediate Return to Tennis After Winning Doping Appeal

After an absence from tennis lasting over a year, two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep is set to return.

Per ESPN, Halep has been cleared to play immediately after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that she was not entirely at fault for testing positive for a banned substance. Her four-year ban was reduced to nine months and applied retroactively, so it expired this past July.

The three judges that partially upheld Halep's appeal ruled that she "established on the balance of probabilities" that her positive test for a banned blood-boosting substance "entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement."

Halep was also awarded 20,000 Swiss francs ($22,650) to go toward her legal fees from the International Tennis Integrity Agency that originally prosecuted her and pushed for her to receive a six-year ban.

"I cannot wait to return to the tour," Halep said in a statement released by her lawyer, Howard Jacobs.

The 32-year-old has also filed a lawsuit against the supplement maker that caused her positive test for the banned blood booster roxadustat at the 2022 U.S. Open, which was the last time she competed. If her appeal was denied, she would have been exiled from tennis until October 2026 after she turned 35.

Halep, the former world No. 1, received her four-year ban after an investigation that detected alleged irregularities in her biological passport. She maintained her denial of any wrongdoing throughout the process and blamed contaminated nutritional supplements.

"Although the CAS panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence," the court said.

Halep won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, defeating 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the final. She will surely be motivated to regain her status as one of the best players in the world when she returns to the court.