Former world tennis number one Simona Halep is suing the supplement manufacturer that she claims is responsible for the four-year doping ban that could end her career.
The Romanian is demanding $10m (£8m) in damages from Quantum Nutrition, which operates as Schinoussa Superfoods, after testing positive for Roxadustat, a drug often used by people with anaemia.
Halep, 32, who tested positive at the 2022 US Open, was banned for four years in September by an International Tennis Integrity Agency tribunal, a sentence she appealed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport earlier this month.
The player claims she accidentally took Roxadustat in contaminated Keto MCT supplements the Canadian firm gave her and it was not disclosed on the label.
Roxadustat, which can increase haemoglobin and the production of red blood cells, building endurance, is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) banned substances list.
The two-time Grand Slam champion’s case, filed at a state court in New York on Friday, said she has never used any banned substances.
Quantum’s negligence and false claims that its supplement was legal has, she alleged, harmed her career and caused humiliation.
The company, based in Scarborough in Ontario, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Its founder told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in October that Halep was seeking a scapegoat and his company was being made into “the fall guy”.
The tribunal agreed that Halep, who won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon the following year, had not known that the supplement might have contained the banned blood booster and suspended her until October 2026.
Simona Halep with the Wimbledon trophy she won in 2019. Pic: AP
But it said the urine sample she gave on 29 August 2022 contained too much for contamination to be the cause and concluded she “had committed intentional anti-doping rule violations”.
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Halep appealed that ruling last week before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“I really believe that the truth is going to come out and the day to be on court is going to be soon,” Halep said.
Halep will be 35 when the ban ends and in December, the Romanian admitted that if the CAS decision goes against her, it will likely be the end of her career.
