By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Thursday, November 14, 2024
Photo: Flaviu Buboi/Nur Photos/Getty
Nikola Bartunkova can go back to tennis now.
The 2023 Wimbledon girls’ finalist accepted a six-month ban after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine in February and March.
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of International Tennis Integrity Agency announced today that the Czech player had “no significant fault or negligence” for the inadvertent anti-doping violation. Bartunkova qualified to return to tennis on 11 November.
The 18-year-old Bartunkova reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 226 in April 2024.
After an investigation, the ITIA accepted that the positive tests for trimetazidine were “caused by the contamination of a supplement containing milk thistle extract, that the breach was not intentional and that the player had no significant fault or negligence,” the ITIA said in a statement.
After the investigation, Bartunkova told ITIA on October 27 that a contaminated supplement was the source of the trimetazidine found in her sample.
In response, the ITIA instructed the independent, WADA-accredited Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in Utah, USA, to test the supplement. These findings were confirmed and the scenario verified by an independent scientific expert as credible.
After an interview with Bartunkova, the ITIA admitted that the violation was not intentional and that she had “No significant fault or negligence” for the anti-doping violation.
The Czech teenager is currently ranked 488th and has earned $84,031 in career prize money.
