By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, April 14, 2017
"I had been getting clearance on everything I was taking for seven years and I became complacent," Maria Sharapova told The Times.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Maria Sharapova took another shot in her ongoing squabble with the ITF—and conceded complacency played a part in her doping violation.
The former world No. 1 will complete her 15-month doping ban this month and launch her comeback on April 26th on the red clay of Stuttgart.
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In a new interview with The Times, Sharapova said the International Tennis Federation should have communicated clearly that meldonium, the drug she took for a decade, was added to the banned list on January 1st, 2016.
Sharapova also acknowledged “ultimately the fault was mine” for her positive test following her 2016 Australian Open quarterfinal loss to Serena Williams. Read the Times interview here.
"Why didn't someone come up to me and have a private conversation, just an official to an athlete, which would have taken care of the confidentiality problem they talked about later,” Sharapova told The Times. “Ultimately the fault was mine. But I had been getting clearance on everything I was taking for seven years and I became complacent."
Sharapova said she began taking the drug shortly after defeating Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final to capture her first career Grand Slam championship.
"I was getting colds and flu and it started to affect my body," Sharapova told The Times. "I was taken to a doctor in Moscow. He gave me about 10 supplements to take, one of which was Mildronate."
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The five-time Grand Slam champion was initially suspended for two years. Sharapova appealed her two-year ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, earning a reduced 15-month sentence.
After that partial victory, Sharapova told Charlie Rose the CAS decision was a “repudiation” of the ITF and charged “the ITF wanted to ban me for four years.”
“I went through the ITF hearing in front of an arbitration that was chosen by the ITF,” Sharapova told Charlie Rose. “So I’m in a hearing knowing the people I’m speaking to…are chosen by the people I’m actually in a fight with. They call that neutral? That’s not neutral.”
The ITF issued a stern rebuke of Sharapova’s statements rejecting nearly every claim she made in the interview.
In a parting shot to Sharapova, the ITF rejected her claim it could have done a better job warning her that meldonium was added to the banned list.
The ITF said since Sharapova failed to declare her use of meldonium on any doping control form or to any physios or medical staff and since the World Anti-Doping Agency’s program is anonymous, it had no way of knowing she was using the banned drug until she tested positive.
Sharapova has received wild cards into Stuttgart, Madrid and Rome. Roland Garros and Wimbledon have yet to announce wild cards.
Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Chris Evert said she believes Sharapova can crack the Top 5 in her comeback.
“Do I think she can be Top 10? Absolutely. It’s so close, the top 20 and 30,” Evert said in an ESPN conference call with the media. “It’s so close at the top there’s no big gap in the top 20 or 30. So yes, she can get back (to the top 10).
"Can she get back to Top 5? I don’t see why not. Absolutely, absolutely.”