"Strict liability means that a player is solely responsible for any banned substance they use, attempt to use, or is found in their system, regardless of how it got there or whether there was any intention to cheat."
LTA website
Strict liability when it comes to medication or supplements is one thing but it would be a bit much to include inadvertent ingestion from food. It's not like we have a choice whether to eat or not. Having said that, there is a known problem with meat in South America so eating meat there if you're a professional sportsperson is pretty dumb.
Seems to be dragging on forever for poor Tara. Can't believe she did anything wrong deliberately. Must be mentally awful for her when she was doing well with her doubles success.
Its over 7 months now - whether she is innocent or guilty, surely that is unacceptable? A players career can simply slip away. There must be some activity behind the scenes on this?
if she is not guilty, found not guilty, do they reimburse her? She will have lost 7 months earnings, more, both prizemoney and other income. That is hard for anyone to cope with. Whatever that looks like as an amount, it cant just be passed over
Hard to believe this is now 9 or 10 months ago - the fact that Tara hasnt been able to progress this in that time seems v strange and the fact that she hasnt been formally charged seems interesting...surely if the authorities were convinced of her liability she would have been charged by now, but also why would they keep her suspension going so long without charging her?
Maybe if she is found guilty they will just not make her serve any more time banned, effectively net it all off her suspended time?
It also seems strange there is nothing in the social media sphere on this - Tara hasnt tweeted as far as I can tell in a long time, none of the press seem interested, just a void...
v strange situation
Meanwhile Tara's doubles ranking is somehow still at 171 or so - presumably this will collapse in the next month or so?
It is very strange that there hasn't been any news on this for ages.
Tara's ranking has held up because she has some big points counters still. But she is due to drop 196 points in April, 135 in May and the last 130 (from RG) in June.
That equates to roughly WR300 at the end of April and WR470 at the end of May
Thanks for this. Nice to see her anyway, but the news (lack of) re the ban is truly ridiculous.
Seems she's in Florida, anyway......
it has been 12 months almost now, hasnt it?
My understanding if you are banned is that you cant go near an official tennis venue or event, coaches etc (Dan was completely banned when he failed his test). So presumably Tara has never been banned, which then seems totally unfair to maintain a 12 month suspension on her pending an outcome. If she had been banned, she would almost certainly be back and able to play again now!