I haven't seen any mention on here about why Sarah Borwell has been playing with new partners recently. Apologies if this has been posted before, but here is the relevant article from the ITF about Courtney. Unless she wins an appeal, the partnership will not be resumed this year.
Funnily enough, I posted that link last night when I came across the report while looking into what happened with Puerta, Wardy's opponent today, but I can't find it any more. The board was behaving a bit oddly in the early hours though.
If you look at the detailed judgement (pdf link at the bottom of that page), they seem to accept that the presence of canrenone in her system was due to therapeutic use of a prescribed drug containing it (spironolactone) to treat a medical condition, medication which she declared on her doping control form. However, they don't believe that informing the doctor who prescribed it that she was an athlete and asking whether it was still ok to use it was taking sufficient care.
While I understand that strict liability is needed to avoid the real cheats always finding a way to get around the system, I get the awful feeling (having read a few of these judgements), that it's almost always those who make a relatively innocent mistake who get caught and the people deliberately taking performance-enhancing drugs are probably far too careful to get caught out and don't tend to get spotted unless they are stupid.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
I think a case like this is one of those where the suspended person has taken said 'drug' (I want to use the term loosely but given I've had lectures most of the week about it, it technically IS one) has used it but not for the purposes of cheating but therapeutic/medicinal reasons but unfortunately it's on the list. It's a shame really but there was a similar case for Volandri recently. His ban was overturned, maybe Courtney could be appealed under similar circumstances.