Maria Sharapova won't be the first tennis player to make a comeback from doping controversies

There was a constant stream of accusations and rebuttals in the months since Maria Sharapova first announced that she had failed a drug test for meldonium during the 2016 Australian Open. Later, as the Court of Arbitration of Sport revised her initial two-year suspension from professional tennis to 15 months, except for sporadic interruptions, tennisdom looked to have moved on to its other fascinating subjects.

Now that Sharapova is days away from stepping back into the Pro Tour, the cycle has started all over again, casting her as the epitome of villainy in the sport. The outpouring of backlash coming the Russian’s way has made it seem as though she were the first tennis player to have gone adrift of the expected professional standards. Additionally, there have also aspersions been raised about whether she can regain her form, and if she is deserving of all the assistance coming her way.

The curious case of substance abuse infractions

“…I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs,” read Andre Agassi’s words in his autobiography about his seemingly inadvertent ingestion of methamphetamine in 1997. “I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely. I feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”

In trying to redeem his (then) already waning image as a tennis prodigy in 1997, Agassi convincingly passed the buck of his unprofessionalism, and his nonchalance about tennis onto his assistant Slim. His apparent sincerity too resonated more powerfully, as he went on to win five of his eight Majors in the following years.

Much like Agassi, Martina Hingis too has similarly rebuilt her career, without the shadows of her past brushes with cocaine abuse tarring the third resurgence of her career. A similar line of justification can be made for Richard Gasquet and Viktor Troicki as well, though the latter’s 18-month ban came as a result of him failing to get himself tested instead of the tests showing presence of banned substances.

Each of their vindications, thus, speaks volumes about their individual determination to get themselves exonerated wholly, in their own eyes. However, it also says a lot about the sport – and those involved in it – that they were allowed to be welcomed back so heartily in the first place. There again, when it comes to Agassi and Hingis, even to the extent of elevating their names in tennis’ history books as two of its most prolific talents.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

There’s but a fine line of distinguishing between these players and the several others who have been at the receiving end of punitive action because of consumption of performance-enhancing substances. Some of these names – and there have been many – have also marked better and more memorable returns to tennis.

Guillermo Coria is synonymous with reaching his first – and only – final at a Major at the 2004 French Open, which he lost to compatriot Gaston Gaudio. Prior to Coria’s journey to the Roland Garros final was the lengthy battle he – successfully – undertook with tennis’ administration to vindicate his name from a doping scandal that erupted in 2001, when he tested positive for Nandrolene. The Argentine also filed a suit against the American company from which he had procured the routine multi-vitamins that contained the steroid, before agreeing to a settlement with the firm.

2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic’s career path also bears a similarity with that of Coria. The Croatian failed a drug test in 2013 after nikethamide was found in his system and was subsequently banned for nine months. Taking up the case with the Court of Arbitration of Sport, Cilic went on to prove that the stimulant was present in the glucose tablets he had routinely consumed during a tournament. Consequentially, the CAS reduced his ban to four months.

Barbora Strycova, who has made it to the women’s doubles semi-final of the 2017 Miami Open, too has had a doping violation. Back in 2013, the Czech was banned for six months after she had tested positive for sibutramine, in October 2012. Incidentally, in the four years since her ban, Strycova has enjoyed considerable success in her career, both in singles as well as doubles. She reached the women’s singles quarter-final at Wimbledon in 2014 and is a two-time doubles semi-finalist, at the 2014 US and 2015 Australian Opens.

The Maria Sharapova connect

More than just token comparisons, these are then life-lessons to be borrowed for the 30-year-old Sharapova. The Russian, whose preparations have intensified ahead of expected comeback, recently shared that she felt empowered following the CAS verdict in her case. “Although I’m at a stage or age in my career where you’re closer to the end than your beginning, you always want to end a chapter in your life on your own terms, in your own voice. That’s why I fought so hard for the truth to be out.”

The Russian’s sentiments are understandable as is her determination to prove a point. If not to her detractors, then to herself that she still has the will to resume what she never wanted to forgo in the first place.

“When you love what you do, and do it with passion and integrity and you work hard, and you work on court number 28 when no one is watching that’s when a lot of my trophies are being won. I know that my mind and my body still have the motivation to be the best tennis player I can be.” Her words have conveyed the sentiment. All that is left is for her actions to follow through.