By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Two-time Roland Garros champion Maria Sharapova can be back on court before the 2017 French Open.
The 29-year-old Sharapova scored a partial victory in the appeal of her doping suspension that can put her back on court by next spring.
More: Tennis Reacts To Sharapova Shortened Suspension
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has partially upheld Sharapova's appeal reducing her sentence for testing positive for the banned substance meldonium from two years to 15 months. Read the complete Court of Arbitration for Sport decision on Sharapova's case here.
That nine-month reduction means the former world No. 1 is eligible to return to the WTA Tour on April 26th, 2017.
Head CEO: Sharapova Treated Unfairly; System Must Be Fixed
Sharapova celebrated the news in a Facebook post minutes after the CAS decision was announced.
"I’ve gone from one of the toughest days of my career last March when I learned about my suspension to now, one of my happiest days, as I found out I can return to tennis in April," Sharapova said in a statement posted to her Facebook page. "In so many ways, I feel like something I love was taken away from me and it will feel really good to have it back. Tennis is my passion and I have missed it. I am counting the days until I can return to the court."
WTA CEO Steve Simon welcomed Sharapova back to the tour in a statement.
With 22-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams potentially pulling the plug on her season and former world No. 1 Grand Slam champions Victoria Azarenka, who is pregnant with her first child, and Ana Ivanovic, who is out for the year nursing injury, both off the pro circuit, Sharapova's drawing power and economic impact on the sport can boost the tour, which is going through a transition time.
"The TADP has a comprehensive and fair process in place and we support the final result," Simon said. "We are pleased that the process is now at completion and can look forward to seeing Maria back on court in 2017."
Sharapova tested positive for the banned drug meldonium following her Australian Open quarterfinal loss to Serena Williams last January. She has not played a match since then.
On June 6th, an independent tribunal of the International Tennis Federation hit Sharapova with a two-year ban, which meant she was not eligible to return to tournament tennis until January 26th, 2018.
A defiant Sharapova blasted the initial decision as "unfairly harsh" and filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on June 9th.
"I cannot accept an unfairly harsh two-year suspension," Sharapova wrote in June. "The tribunal, whose members were selected by the ITF, agreed that I did not do anything intentionally wrong, yet they seek to keep me from playing tennis for two years. I will immediately appeal the suspension portion of this ruling to CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport."
In her appeal, Sharapova did not dispute the fact she ingested meldonium, but argued she bore no significant fault or negligence for the doping violation. Meldonium, also known as Mildronate, was added to the banned substance list on January 1st of this year.
Sharapova said she relied on her long-time IMG agent, Max Eisenbud, to meet all anti-doping compliance rules.
Eisenbud testified he failed to follow up on drugs added to the banned substance list.
The CAS ruled "Such circumstances show some degree of fault on the part of the Player, but they do not exclude altogether the possibility for the Player to invoke NSF (No Significant Fault or Negligence).
"The Panel finds in fact that the Player had a reduced perception of the risk she was incurring while using Mildronate, and that this reduced perception of risk was justified."
In its 33-page ruling issued in June, the three-member independent tribunal rejected Eisenbud's testimony that he forgot to follow up on meldonium's status on the WADA banned list, calling it "wholly incredible." Read the independent tribunal's complete decision here.
"The idea that a professional manager, entrusted by IMG with the management of one of its leading global sporting stars, would so casually and ineptly have checked whether his player was complying with the anti-doping program, a matter critical to the player’s professional career and her commercial success, is unbelievable," the tribunal wrote in its decision. "The tribunal rejects Mr. Eisenbud’s evidence."
In contrast, the Court of Arbitration for Sport was more amenable to Sharapova's assertion that Eisenbud dropped the ball, though it also ruled Sharapova bore responsibility for not instructing her agent to follow up.
"(Sharapova) did not instruct Mr. Eisenbud to consult the WADA, ITF or WTA website, to call the ITF “hot line”, to open the flash drive supplied with the “wallet card”, or even to read the emails received, opening the “links” therein contained," the CAS wrote in its decision. "She simply passed the entire matter over to Mr Eisenbud, completely relying on him."
In its conclusion, the CAS noted that though Sharapova committed the anti-doping rule violation with No Significant Fault or Negligence, Sharapova "bears some degree of fault, which prevents a reduction to the minimum measure of ineligibility."
It's not the first time a former Top 10 player has successfully appealed for a shorter sentence.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced suspensions on appeal in prior cases, including 2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic and Richard Gasquet.
Johan Eliasch, CEO of Head, Sharapova's racket sponsor that has stood by the five-time Grand Slam champion throughout her suspension, questioned both the legitimacy of Sharapova's initial suspension and Therapeutic Use Exemptions granted to some tennis players at the Olympics.
In a strongly-worded statement, Eliasch said Sharapova was treated unfairly and charged an "urgent need for a wholesale comprehensive review and change to the anti-doping system" in a post on Head's Facebook page.
"It is highly unfair that Maria, an upstanding individual of the highest moral and ethical conduct, was banned from playing competitive tennis while not actively engaging in any behaviors that could be considered cheating," Eliasch said. "This calls into questions the revelations about certain Olympic athletes who were granted therapeutic use exemptions for substances that could most certainly be considered performance enhancing and have proven to be performance enhancing under significant clinical testing, while meldonium, the substance that Maria had been taking, has yet to be proven under any significant clinical testing to have any performance enhancing benefits."