Emma Raducanu believed Iga Swiatek when the Pole said that she was “very anxious” after one of her tests came back as doping positive as the Briton admits that players are “quite apprehensive” when it comes to taking supplements because no one wants to unknowingly ingest something prohibited.
As you probably know very well by now, the ITIA announced last Thursday that a sample provided by the world No. 2 in August was positive for trimetazidine (TMZ). In her own statement, the five-time Grand Slam champion said that she was left panicking and absolutely shocked because she had never even heard about the substance before.
Upon an investigation, Swiatek and her team located the culprit – melatonin pills manufactured in Poland were contaminated. Later, the ITIA accepted the 23-year-old’s explanation and her provisional suspension was cut before she was ultimately handed a symbolic one-month ban.
Raducanu, who has been practicing at the National Tennis Centre in London for the past couple of days, spoke with British reporters there. Ahead of the 2025 season, the 2021 US Open champion acknowledged that players deal with anxiety and stress pretty much whenever they have to take something.
Also, the former world No. 10 noted that batch testing something is very expensive. But when it specifically comes to the 22-year-old, she has one rule – she never takes anything unless she is 100 percent sure that it is clean.
“I think in general, not just me but a lot of the players I know, we’re quite apprehensive. Everything we take, we are very aware of the situation and how easily things can be contaminated. And there are certain supplements that I may want to take but I can’t take them because they’re over-the-counter and they’re not batch tested (pre-tested for prohibited substances),” Raducanu told British reporters.
“To batch test something is £1,000 for one little thing, so it’s very expensive. For the things that you really, really need to take, then it’s obviously worth that, but you just have to cut out a lot of things that you wouldn’t necessarily take. I’m very careful with what I drink, what I eat. If I leave my water around, I’m very on edge about it. But it’s just part of the sport. We’re all in the same boat.”
Emma Raducanu© Emma Raducanu/Instagram – Fair Use
What exactly happened in the Swiatek case?
In early August, the five-time Grand Slam apparently got tested at the Paris Olympics and that test returned as clean. After concluding her run in Paris and winning the bronze medal, she went to the United States to start her North American hard-court swing.
Since she was dealing with stress and jet lag issues at the time and needed sleep, she turned to melatonin medication. And since those pills were contaminated, that’s how the former world No. 1 failed a doping test in Cincinnati.
Following the ITIA’s announcement, Swiatek decided to tell her side of the story through an Instagram video. There, she detailed to the fullest how she was left shocked and in disbelief when she was informed about a positive doping test.
“I was shocked and this whole situation made me very anxious. At first I couldn’t understand how that was even possible and where it had come from. It turns out testing revealed historically lowest levels of trimetazidine, a substance I’ve never heard about before. I don’t think I even knew it existed. I have never encountered it, nor did people around me,” Swiatek said in an Instagram video.
“So I had a strong sense of injustice, and these first few weeks were really chaotic. We instantly reacted and cooperated with the ITIA. The detected concentration was extremely low, suggested, or rather, made it obvious that either the sample was contaminated or a supplement or medication that I was taking was contaminated, which is why we focused on running tests on all nutritional supplements and medications that I was taking.
“The tests showed that melatonin [which] I’ve been using for a long time – the batch I had on me and had used before Cincinnati – was contaminated during manufacturing. It was a shock to hear, but it also explained a lot, and locating the source is key in these cases, which is why after finding out, we had to prove that the medication was in fact contaminated.”
During her provisional suspension, Swiatek missed the entire Asian swing – she was slated to play Seoul, Beijing and Wuhan.
However, the most important thing is that she was able to clear her name and that she will be able to start her 2025 season in time.
Tennis World USA