Simona Halep asks for compensation from the company that produced the contaminated supplement

31-yo tennis player Simona Halep, suspended for a period of 4 years for doping by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), has confirmed that she will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne (CAS). Moreover, the former WTA leader sued the company Schinoussa Superfood, which produced the contaminated supplement (n.r. Keto MCT), announced Simona’s lawyer, Bogdan Stoica.

“We sued the Canadian company, I think a month or so ago. The lawsuit can only be one of compensation and has no implications in the sports file,” said Bogdan Stoica, for euronews.ro.

Simona’s lawyer did not want to disclose the amount of Simona Halep’s financial claims from the Canadian company, but ProSport reports that it is more than 10 million dollars.

The court accepted Simona Halep’s argument that she took contaminated dietary supplements, but determined that the volume ingested by the player could not result in the concentration of roxadustat identified in the positive sample.

Before being suspended for doping, Simona Halep collected 4 million dollars annually from sponsorships alone. In addition to this amount, the prizes that “Simo” won at tennis tournaments were in the order of millions of dollars. In 2020, Simona Halep was the 4th highest paid player on the WTA circuit, according to Forbes. She had earnings of $10.9 million over the course of a year: $6.9 million from prize money and $4 million from sponsorships.

Simona Halep has earned $40.2 million in tournament prize money alone in her entire career and ranks 3rd on the all-time list behind sisters Serena and Venus Williams.