Halep will be making her anticipated return in Miami this week – her first tournament since August 2022. The former world No. 1 was provisionally suspended in October 2022 when she tested positive for roxadustat, a banned substance. A few months later she received a second charge relating to abnormalities in her Athlete Biological Passport.
An independent tribunal upheld both charges and banned her for four years. But Halep appealed to CAS in February. The CAS panel threw out the ABP charge and accepted Halep’s argument that the positive doping test was the result of a contaminated substance, reducing her ban.
It meant that her suspension effectively ended in July 2023. And the Miami Open made sure that Halep wouldn’t spend any more time on the sidelines, giving her a wildcard into the main draw. Tournament director James Blake has now explained his decision to let the 32-year-old compete, admitting he somewhat put his neck on the line for her.
“That one’s on me,” the former world No. 4 said on the Served with Andy Roddick “When it comes to some of the tennis decisions they’re going to trust me.” When decisions were being made on who would get the wildcards, Blake explained that he wanted to be prepared to offer Halep a spot if needed.
The Miami Open tournament director continued: “I had a feeling we needed to be ready for whether she’s going to ask [for a wild card]. We had already gone through a lot of our wild card discussions, and we did, luckily, save one women’s wild card because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Blake also consulted Halep’s former coach Darren Cahill, who is currently working with ATP No. 3 Jannik Sinner. The Australian had been in contact with the two-time Major winner and knew that she had been training consistently so that she would be ready for a sudden return to the tour if her ban was slashed.
