By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Thursday, November 14, 2024
Photograph credit score: Flaviu Buboi/Nur Pictures/Getty
Nikola Bartunkova can return to tennis now.
The 2023 Wimbledon women’ finalist accepted a six-month suspension after testing optimistic for the banned substance trimetazidine in February and March.
Extra: TC Suspends Jon Wertheim
The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company introduced at present the Czech participant bore “no important fault or negligence” for the unintentional anti-doping violation. Bartunkova turned eligible to return to tennis on November eleventh.
The 18-year-old Bartunkova reached a career-high singles rating of No. 226 in April 2024.
Following an investigation, the ITIA accepted that the optimistic checks for trimetazidine had been “brought on by the contamination of a complement containing milk thistle extract, that the violation was not intentional, and that the participant bore no important fault or negligence,” the ITIA stated in an announcement.
After investigation, Bartunkova instructed the ITIA on October twenty seventh {that a} contaminated complement was the supply of the trimetazidine present in her pattern.
In response, the ITIA instructed the unbiased and WADA-accredited Sports activities Drugs Analysis & Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in Utah, USA, to check the complement. These findings had been confirmed, and the state of affairs was verified by an unbiased scientific professional as believable.
Following an interview with Bartunkova, the ITIA accepted that the violation was not intentional and that the she bore “No Important Fault or Negligence” for the anti-doping violation.
The Czech teenager is at the moment ranked No. 488 and has earned $84,031 in profession prize cash.
