CAS Finds Errani Barely Established Letrozole’s Source, Lengthens Ban

Sara Errani established the source of her positive doping test—but only just—and her punishment grew. In June 2018, the Court of Arbitration for Sport replaced the Italian tennis player’s two-month suspension with ten months of ineligibility. CAS said letrozole from her mother’s medication had found its way into a family meal. The panel nevertheless placed Errani’s fault at the upper end of the “light” range.

Errani, the 2012 French Open runner-up, had provided an out-of-competition urine sample on 16 February 2017. It contained letrozole, a substance used to treat breast cancer and prohibited under tennis’s anti-doping rules. She admitted the anti-doping violation. At her initial hearing, her lawyers argued that she had inadvertently ingested the substance through her mother’s anti-cancer medication, Femara, while staying at her parents’ house.

On 3 August 2017, an independent tribunal appointed under the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme found that Errani bore no significant fault or negligence. It imposed two months of ineligibility, ending at midnight on 2 October. The consequences reached back to the day her sample was collected: her results from 16 February through 7 June 2017, when she next tested negative, were disqualified. She forfeited the ranking points and prize money earned at events during that period.

The two appeals challenged different parts of that decision. Errani sought to recover her disqualified results; she did not appeal the length of the suspension. NADO Italia, the Italian anti-doping agency, appealed both the sanction’s length and the disqualification of results. By the time CAS considered the case at a hearing on 9 November 2017, Errani had served the original two-month suspension.

According to the ITF’s account of the appeal decision, the CAS panel found that Errani had demonstrated—but only just—the source of the letrozole. CAS said her mother’s medication had found its way into a meal her mother prepared and the whole family ate. A CAS statement attributed the fault finding both to Errani’s departure from the standards of care expected of her and to her mother’s fault, which was imputed to Errani.

CAS dismissed Errani’s appeal and upheld NADO Italia’s. The ten-month sanction replaced the two-month punishment rather than adding ten months to it: the time already served counted, leaving eight months. The disqualification of results remained unchanged. The ITF’s announcement on 12 June 2018 said Errani would be eligible to compete again on 8 February 2019.

Errani responded with anger and doubt about returning. In a statement posted to her official Twitter account, she said she had been forced to restart at a ranking of 280 and had climbed back. “I don't know if I will be able to find the strength and the desire to play tennis again, after all this.”