Mouratoglou, “feeling responsible”, says that a contaminated collagen is at the origin of Halep’s positive test

The coach says that he “feels responsible” for having proposed a contaminated supplement to the player but highlights that his team “could not know” that there was a manufacturing defect. This “can happen to anyone”, Mouratoglou insists

Patrick Mouratoglou and Simona Halep, Wimbledon 2022 || © Antoine Couvercelle / Panoramic

Cédric Rouquette

November 4, 2023

Bren Gray

One week after Simona Halep made an official appeal to the CAS (Court of Arbitration of Sports) for her four-year ban announced by the ITIA (Tennis Anti-Doping System), former coach Patrick Mouratoglou has said he is “confident” with the outcome of this appeal.

“I’m very confident that this independent tribunal will recognise the fact that she never did doping,” Mouratoglou, co-founder of Tennis Majors, added in a post on Instagram released on Friday, developing what he said in his first reaction to Halep’s punishment.

“She’s a victim. And she has to come back to the court and be able to compete as soon as possible.”

“There was no way to know the contamination, but I feel responsible for what happened”

“We have been able to establish where the contamination comes from. [When we worked with her], we suggested she takes collagen. We brought her collagen from a company and this collagen happened to be contaminated [with roxadustat].

“There was no way to know it, but I feel responsible for what happened, because it’s my team, so me, basically, who brought her this collagen,” he added. “We have done all the possible tests to be able to establish that we are talking about contamination.”

In a recent interview released in L’Equipe, French Professor Jean-Claude Alvarez asserted that the source of the roxadustat found in Simona Halep’s analyses was her collagen supplement – “manufactured in China where roxadustat is hyper-common” – taken as a powder mixed with water. This treatment can be used to treat pain in tendons, ligaments and joints.

Halep still hopeful for anti-doping appeal

“[This episode] opened my eyes to the fact that any athlete can become contaminated tomorrow because apparently this happens,” Mouratoglou continued. “More and more products, which are supposed to be clean, happen to be contaminated. We’re talking about extremely low levels of something. When I say extremely low, it’s extremely low. So it has zero effect.”

“But you happen to have in your system something that shouldn’t be there, that makes you positive in an anti-doping test. And this is terrible because you are completely innocent, your reputation is impacted (…) for a very unfair reason because you have done nothing.”

Simona Halep has not played competitively since the US Open 2022. She tested positive in August 2022, and the case was released in October 2022. The Romanian was tried and punished one year later, before appealing to the CAS. No date is known about the new procedure with this court, located in Lausanne, Switzerland. Halep continues to stay active and practices to be back on tennis courts as soon as possible.

“My fight continues,” Halep wrote on her social media on September 12th. “I have devoted my life to the beautiful game of tennis. I take the rules that govern our sport very seriously and take pride in the fact I have never knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance.”