The Sharapova Case: Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

Nobody should be pumping a fist and bellowing, “Come on!” when it comes to The Sharapova Case. None of the major players ended up winners, writes Christopher Clarey.

- Christopher Clarey

Maria Sharapova, who said she had taken Meldonium under the brand name Mildronate for 10 years to help with a variety of health problems, should have known that there had been a change to the banned list. But as the Sports Court made clear in its ruling, Anti-Doping Authorities and Tennis Authorities should have done a better job of letting players know that a long-permissible drug was now off limits.

With her doping sus-pension reduced to 15 months from two years, Maria Sharapova and her legal team sounded triumphant. But the truth is that nobody should be pumping a fist and bellowing, “Come on!” when it comes to the Sharapova case. None of the major players ended up winners.

Not the World Anti-Doping Agency, which botched the introduction of meldonium to its banned list this year, undermining faith in the system at a moment when faith is imperative.

Not Sharapova, who made errors in judgment and will still miss more than a year of competitive tennis and take a major financial hit for what the Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded on October 4 was essentially an administrative oversight.

Certainly not the International Tennis Federation, which again had a tribunal overruled by the sports court in an important case, in this instance even being taken to task by the court.

“They keep getting flipped,” the American sports lawyer Paul Greene said, using the industry term for “overturned.”

Yes, they do. See, for a start, the cases of the prominent men’s players, Marin Cilic and Viktor Troicki in 2013, when Cilic’s ban was reduced to four months, from nine, and Troicki’s to a year, from 18 months.

It appears to be time for yet another under-duress look at change, which has become the rule in tennis throughout this year of upheaval.