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Lausanne – A decision on former world No 1 tennis player Maria Sharapova’s appeal against a two-year doping ban will be issued in the first week of next month, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said yesterday.
Five-times grand slam winner Sharapova, 29, was banned by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in June following a positive test for the banned drug meldonium during January’s Australian Open.
Sharapova was named in Russia’s official entry list for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro but the CAS decided in July to defer its decision on her appeal against the ban.
Sharapova is seeking to have her suspension, which was handed down by the ITF in June, wiped out or reduced.
She had called the ITF’s ruling “unfairly harsh” as an independent tribunal had found that she had not intentionally violated anti-doping rules.
Meldonium was added to World Anti-doping Agency’s list of banned substances at the start of the year after mounting evidence that it boosted blood flow and enhanced athletic performance.
Meanwhile, Former tennis champion and convicted child rapist Bob Hewitt on Monday had an appeal to have his six-year jail term reduced by South Africa’s Constitutional Court rejected, media reported.
The Australian-born 76-year-old had turned to the highest court in the country after an initial appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal in June.
According to reports the Constitutional Court ruled his appeal “had no chance of success”.
Hewitt, who has been out on bail, will shortly be sent to prison to serve his sentence.
The former multiple Gram Slam doubles champion was convicted in May 2015 of raping two girls aged 12 and 13 in the early 1980s, and of indecently assaulting a 17-year-old girl in 1994.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Hewitt who was born in Dubbo, Australia has lived in South Africa for most of his life.
His name was removed from the International Tennis Hall of Fame after a series of sexual abuse allegations against him surfaced in 2013.— Sport24.
Online Reporter