Honeymoon’s over. After a few blissful days of relatively supportive media coverage over her failed dope test – including from her greatest rival Serena Williams – tennis star Maria Sharapova is starting to really cop it from fellow tennis stars, who think she’s lying about not knowing meldonium was banned.
Tennis great John McEnroe said yesterday that he found it “hard to believe” that no one in her camp noticed that the anti-ischemic drug she had been taking for over ten years had been banned by authorities.
He compared it to his own ejection in the 1990 Australian Open, where he hadn’t realised that a rule change had reduced a default from four steps to three. “Nobody told me, so it is possible that Maria did not know that, though it’s extremely doubtful.”
Now, former player Kristina Mladenovic says that she and other players widely believed Sharapova to be “a cheater” and also doubted that she would notice that a drug she had been taking for so long had been added to the banned list. She told French newspaper La Parisien:
“As far as I am concerned if I take an aspirin I worry 10 times about what I do. She’s been taking this drug for 10 years and it’s a serious drug. She has played with the rules and thought, if it’s not banned, then I can take it.”
This follows a statement from Andy Murray, who said that the whole situation sounded “a little bit off” to him, and that she “has to get suspended.”
Sharapova is facing a possible four-year ban from tennis, which would effectively end her career.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Image: Getty Images / Kevork Djansezian.
