Question marks raised over Varvara Lepchenko’s career following four-year doping ban
- Seb Sternik
- 5 March 2022
Former world number 19 Varvara Lepchenko has been handed a four-year doping ban, putting her tennis career in serious jeopardy.
The 35-year-old American player returned a positive test for a banned substance during last summer's Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest.
Following the test result, Lepchenko was provisionally suspended on August 19.
The player denied intentionally ingesting the stimulant and argued her case with an independent tribunal, saying she may have unwittingly taken a contaminated supplement.
Despite her arguments, the tribunal imposed the four-year ban saying: "The tribunal found the evidence provided by the player to be vague to the point of non-existent in respect of what, when and in what doses the supplements were taken, especially in the period immediately prior to the positive test.
"There is in fact no evidence whatsoever that the supplements referred to by the player were the source of the prohibited substance detected."
The four-year ban has been backdated to August, but considering she would be 39-year-old at the time of her return, it's unlikely the American will return to elite level tennis.
Lepchenko is currently ranked 128, but has been as high as 19 back in 2012. This is a second doping offence for the Uzbek-born player, who switched allegiance to the United States in 2007.
She was among a number of athletes from various sports who tested positive for Meldonium in 2016 but, unlike her fellow tennis player Maria Sharapova, she was deemed to bear no fault or negligence and this violation is therefore treated as a first for the purposes of sanctions.
