Australia’s Nick Kyrgios was cleared to return to tennis on Friday after accepting a one-month ban for using cocaine and entering a treatment program.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old, who reached the Wimbledon final in 2022, failed a doping test during an ATP event in Mallorca on June 22nd.<\/p>\n
He was provisionally suspended on August 4th by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), admitting he made “a huge mistake.”<\/p>\n
In a statement Friday, the doping agency said Kyrgios had explained his use of the drug occurred socially during a night out before he was due to play in Mallorca.<\/p>\n
The ITIA consulted an independent scientific expert at a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratory, who found his explanation was consistent with the level of cocaine found in his sample.<\/p>\n
“As a result, the ITIA accepted that Kyrgios’ use of cocaine was outside of competition,” the ITIA said.<\/p>\n
Under WADA rules, the default suspension for a breach of this type is three months, which can be reduced to one month if an individual commits to a treatment programme.<\/p>\n
“Kyrgios has entered into a treatment programme,” the ITIA added.<\/p>\n
“As such, the player’s suspension will end on September 3, 2026, subject to completion of the programme. Prize-money and ranking points from the Mallorca event will be forfeited.”<\/p>\n
Boasting a big serve and booming groundstrokes, Kyrgios has won seven singles titles on the ATP Tour and rose to a high of 13 in the world in 2016. He is now ranked 918.<\/p>\n
His finest performance was on the grass at Wimbledon in 2022, when he reached the championship match, losing in four sets to Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n
Despite his natural talents that is as good as it gets, a series of injuries taking their toll.<\/p>\n
He has had numerous surgeries, the most serious being a complete reconstruction of his right wrist in 2024.<\/p>\n
The Australian last played as a wildcard entry in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon in July this year, when he and partner Alexander Bublik lost in the first round.<\/p>\n
Kyrgios was contrite when the news of his cocaine use emerged last month.<\/p>\n
“I recently failed a drug test in Mallorca after testing positive for cocaine,” he posted on Instagram at the time. “I made a huge mistake and I take full responsibility for it.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry to my fans, my family, my sponsors and everyone close to me. Above all, I’m sorry to the kids who follow me.<\/p>\n
“I know the example this sets and I’m deeply disappointed in myself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s Nick Kyrgios was cleared to return to tennis on Friday after accepting a one-month ban for using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[285],"class_list":["post-65417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wimbledon","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}