After Calling for Life Ban on Iga Swiatek, Russian ATP Legend Defends Maria Sharapova in Bold Message

Iga Swiatek has returned from her Maldivian vacation and resumed training in Warsaw with Wim Fissette. While she’s gearing up for the 2025 season, the controversy surrounding her doping allegations persists. This comes amidst a backdrop of strong anti-doping stances from tennis figures like Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who has advocated for lifetime bans for doping offenders. However, Kafelnikov’s recent support for Maria Sharapova raises questions about the consistency of his stance.

For the unaware, Sharapova is the first premier tennis star in history to fail a doping test at the Australian Open. Later, she admitted to using the banned endurance-enhancing drug known as meldonium in 2016. During that time she attended a press conference in LA and admitted, “I had been legally taking the medicine for the past 10 years, but on January 1 the rules had changed, and meldonium became a prohibited substance, which I had not known.“

On December 2nd, Yevgeny came up with a new tweet in which he wrote, “Looking back, i really have to admire what Sharapova has done!! Come forward first with press conference before it came out from somebody else!” While Sharapova held a formal press conference on March 7, 2016, to announce that she failed a regulation drug test, Swiatek’s situation was disclosed by the ITIA on Thursday last week. Unlike Sharapova, Swiatek opted for a social media announcement.

Fun Fact: Yevgeny Kafelnikov’s father, Aleksandr Kafelnikov, gave Maria Sharapova her first tennis racket in 1991 when she was four years old. Aleksandr was a friend of Sharapova’s father, Yuri.

Iga Swiatek, the former World No. 2, accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the prohibited substance trimetazidine (TMZ). The positive test was attributed to contaminated melatonin, a non-prescription medication she was taking for sleep issues. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) acknowledged that the violation was unintentional and accepted Swiatek’s explanation. The suspension was relatively lenient compared to other doping cases in tennis, leading to some controversy and debate.

In fact, the current No. 2 tennis player missed Korea Open, China Open, and Wuhan Open during that time. However, interestingly, Iga Swiatek had then cited fatigue, personal reasons, and her coaching split as the reasons for her withdrawals during that time. Not too pleased with Swiatek’s doping, the Russian ATP legend put up a tweet stating,

“Sometimes i wonder…..’ why the hell up i was not using steroids thru all of my carrier [sic], so i could play instead of 170 matches a year to maybe 300′? This is really [a] shame what’s happening to tennis now.” He further added, “It should be LIFE ban for anybody who gets caught using ban substances! NO excuses and ZERO tolerance no matter who your [sic] are!!!!”