Sharapova out of Olympics

A ruling on Maria Sharapova’s appeal against her two-year doping ban has been postponed until September, ruling her definitively out of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The court of arbitration for sport said that Sharapova and the International Tennis Federation had agreed to defer the decision, which had been due to be issued by next Monday, reports The Guardian.

The Cas said both parties wanted more time to prepare their case and also cited “scheduling conflicts” with a verdict now expected by 19 September.

Sharapova filed an appeal last month, seeking to overturn or reduce the suspension imposed by the ITF. She tested positive for meldonium at the Australian Open in January.

The parties agreed to an “expedited procedure” allowing the Cas to issue its ruling this month and had the suspension been annulled, that would have made Sharapova eligible for the Olympics in August.

She was named as one of four Russian players to compete in the women’s singles in Rio alongside Svetlana Kuznetsova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Daria Kasatkina. Her place in the team is likely to be taken by Ekaterina Makarova, the fifth-ranked Russian woman.

The ban, announced in June by the ITF, was deemed to have commenced on 26 January – the day she failed a test for the recently banned drug after losing to Serena Williams in the quarter-finals in Melbourne.

Sharapova has not played since, although she has maintained a high profile at public appearances to promote her confectionery business.

While admitting she had failed the test, Sharapova has maintained since that she took the drug before it was banned and for health reasons only, on the advice of her doctor over a 10-year period.

It was found that while she had not intentionally contravened anti-doping rules, she bore sole responsibility for the substance being in her system during the Australian Open and for her failure to notice that the drug had been added to the banned list.

It also found that, whether legal or not, Sharapova had deliberately concealed her use of meldonium from the authorities, who require athletes to declare all frequently used medications, as well as from her own coaches and team.