Wimbledon clarify drugs ban rule for wildcard criteria as Simona Halep suspension lifted
The All England Club has addressed the possibility of Simona Halep applying for a Wimbledon wildcard.
The All England Club has clarified its position on giving wildcards to players who have served a drugs ban ahead of Wimbledon.
Former champion Simona Halep could be among those applying for a free pass into the main draw. The 2019 winner successfully appealed her four-year suspension and had it reduced to nine months earlier this year, making her immediately eligible to compete.
The French Open did not grant her a wildcard even though she won the tournament in 2018. And the All England Club has answered whether they have a policy in place preventing those who have served bans from getting wildcards.
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Halep has barely played since becoming eligible to compete again in March. The former world No. 1 lost a match at the Miami Open and retired at the Paris 125k clay event.
She did not receive a Roland Garros wildcard as organisers previously set a precedent not to give the passes to those who have served doping-related suspensions when they didn’t give one to two-time champion Maria Sharapova when she returned from her own ban in 2017.
And the All England Club has now clarified that, unlike the French Open, they assess wildcards on a case-by-case basis. “Obviously that’s a hypothetical question,” the club’s Chief Executive Sally Bolton said when asked about Halep applying for one.
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“Our wildcard committee meet and make those decisions, they haven’t met. They will be making an announcement about the wildcard decisions on the 19th of June so I wouldn’t want to pre-judge a consideration of the wildcard committee.”
Asked whether there was a specific policy regarding players who have returned from bans, club Chair Deborah Jevans added: “Once a player has served any drugs ban, they’re then free to compete in the circuit and as such the wildcard committee would consider that and their performance when considering that wildcard. As Sally said, the wildcard committee will meet and make that determination.”
It is not known whether Halep has applied for a wildcard for Wimbledon this year. The Romanian is currently preparing to play an exhibition match with Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi later this week.
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Halep was provisionally suspended in October 2022 when she failed a drugs test during the US Open earlier that year, testing positive for the banned substance roxadustat. A few months later she received a second, separate charge relating to her athlete biological passport.
Last summer, an independent tribunal banned her for four years. She appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport who reduced her ban to nine months, meaning it retrospectively ended last July. CAS accepted Halep’s argument that the roxadustat came from a contaminated substance and they threw out the ABP charge altogether.
