Episode 356: Simona Halep and the Biggest Doping Conviction in Tennis History
Listen now
Description
Ben and Tumaini read the 126-page decision in the tribunal's decision to convict former No. 1 Simona Halep on two charges of intentional doping, and give you a deep dive into the details of the document and expound on what it all means. In the first half of this episode we get into the details so you don't have to, explaining the reasons why the tribunal was "comfortably satisfied" of Halep's guilt, and how they arrived to those two parallel verdicts through different detection methods. We also discuss why Halep's defenses failed, and what she was trying to achieve with her focus on delays to the process. In the second part of the deep dive, we explore the ramifications of these convictions, the most serious convictions a tennis star has ever received, and what they mean for Halep, her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, and the sport of tennis writ large. There's a lot to unpack here, and it's not always fun, but we hope we can shed some light on this complex case for you. Thank you for listening, and if you enjoy deep dives into tennis please pre-order Ben's biography of Naomi Osaka, coming out soon!
More Episodes
To dive further into "Challengers," the much-buzzed-about tennis movie coming out this Friday, Ben chats with the movie's screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes about his inspiration to tell a story about the unique emotional landscape of tennis. We discuss the infamous match that planted the initial seed...
Published 04/25/24
Ben and AJ Eccles attended screenings of the new movie CHALLENGERS this week, and are here to discuss this bold new entry into the growing tennis movie canon (NB: we very carefully avoided any significant spoilers until a very clearly marked intermission at the 41-minute mark). Directed by Luca...
Published 04/20/24
Published 04/20/24