Russian teenager banned from tennis for nine months following anti-doping breach
This article is more than 1 year old
This article is more than 1 year old
The president of Serbia’s Olympic Committee has signed an appeal of Russian player Elitsa Kudryavtseva’s ban from all official tennis events that takes effect from 6 September for failing a drug test.
Kudryavtseva, 18, the first female player from the former Soviet Union to compete at a major tennis finals, was banned for the first time on Wednesday, following her alleged participation in a prohibited drug use.
Her appeal argues that she should receive a lesser punishment than the six months’ suspension she was initially handed when the testing laboratory at the Lillehammer laboratory in Norway detected banned substances, in what is considered to have been a serious violation of the International Tennis Federation’s code of ethics.
The Swiss-based organisation, which does not have a test for the substance, announced Kudryavtseva, daughter of a Russian father and Russian mother, had been “suspended indefinitely for testing positive for a prohibited substance”, with no suspension available on appeal.
It added that she would have been given a final decision by 2 August – the ban was retroactive to 27 June.
The case has become a test of how far the ITA is prepared to go to support the clean-up of the sport.
The ITA said it was waiting for the appeal’s verdict to be delivered, but could not comment on the case, as the ITA’s decision was binding and final.
Kudryavtseva’s father, Kuzma (Kolya), told local media he hoped his daughter’s suspension would not become a precedent and urged her to seek an appeal.
Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said his country was reviewing the punishment and that officials had informed the ITA they could not agree upon a new punishment for Kudryavtseva, who reached the second round of the US Open in 2019 and was in the second round of this year’s Australian Open.