ITF: Hold My Beer

In some ways, I wish the Interational Tennis Federation was my mom while I was growing up. My life would have been so different! Because when I was a kid, this is how conversations went:

MOM: Who took my lipstick?
ME: (wearing it all over my face) Not me!
MOM: Go to your room. You're grounded.

Just imagine what you could do with the ITF:

ITF: Who used this lipstick? It's crusted with PEDs.
ME: I did. But it was totally an accident and really it's my team's fault.
ITF: OK. Don't let it happen again, hon.
ME: ok, cool
ITF: But I slit the tires on your car, so

I'm oversimplifying here, I know. But this Sara Errani drug suspension case is bonkers. Let's start right out by pointing out that there is no evidence, based on tests, that she has been a regular user of the drug letrozole, which has been used to increase the presence of testosterone in the body, which leads to a lean body mass. It appears that this ingestion happened once and in low levels in her body.
But how it got there? I ... I ... OK, you can read it for yourself.

That's right. Sara's mom (Mrs. Errani) accidentally apparently gave her entire family a dose of her cancer medication, including Sara, who was home visiting on an injury-related break from tennis. This is pretty unbelievable. Sara's mom is also a part-time pharmacist. 

Yeah. 

Obviously, I wish the best for Sara's mom and her family. She has apparently been fighting cancer since 2005. 

With that said, this is the craziest report I've ever read. We have one doctor saying Errani probably took it to enhance her performance and another doctor with a hair test disputing this. We have the ITF panel trying to determine the level of intention on a scale of "no-blame" to the "five-alarm Sharapova special." 

Ultimately, they determined that Sara is a little responsible and give her a two-month ban. 

This positive test was first discovered in February, which is a bit of a ... problem here. Errani had been allowed to play through much of the year. Why? 

But then the other crazy part is that although they let her play all that time, they are also taking back all her earnings from between February and June on top of the suspension.

In short, this makes absolutely no sense at all. I mean, the ITF has made a lot of ridiculous judgments in the past. As any TWA reader knows, my favorite is cutting short Maria Sharapova's drug ban, even as she testified that she was making efforts to keep the use of the drug from her team. But it's like they had no idea what to do here. 

... um, why??

And I kind of get it because if you are putting yourself in the position where, as the ITF, you're going to go all in on buying this defense (and I would have loved to be in on some of the tests Errani's team conducted), then it probably becomes difficult to figure out a punishment for this -- or if there should be one. They never quite figured that one out, so they went with a slap on the wrist ... and also taking the money they let her earn for several months. 

It's almost as though Errani and her team came up with the craziest possibility for this positive test and the ITF was like, "You want a judgment? Hold my beer."