Simona Halep has reacted furiously after Iga Swiatek was banned for only one month for failing a drugs test, accusing tennis integrity chiefs of doing “absolutely everything to destroy me” during her own doping hell.

Halep lashed out at the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which announced on Thursday that Swiatek, her fellow former world No 1, had escaped a four-year suspension for taking trimetazidine (TMZ) shortly before the US Open.

The ITIA ruled that Swiatek bore “no significant fault or negligence” for her positive drugs test after accepting her defence that she had taken medication contaminated with the banned substance.

The world No 2’s reprieve came just over two years after Halep tested positive for roxadustat during the US Open and a year since the ITIA banned her for four years for that and alleged irregularities in her athlete biological passport.

In March, that ban was cut to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which found Halep had also been the victim of contamination for which she bore “no significant fault or negligence”.

The Romanian had already served a lengthy provisional ban, in contrast to Swiatek, who missed only three tournaments before successfully contesting her own temporary suspension.

Halep wrote on Instagram: “I’m sitting and trying to understand, but it’s really impossible for me to understand something like this. I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment? I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer.

“It can only be bad will from ITIA, the organisation that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence.”

She added: “I always believed in good, I believed in the fairness of this sport, I believed in goodness. It was painful, is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful.

“How is it possible that in identical cases happening around the same time [the] ITIA... have completely different approaches to my detriment. How could I accept that the WTA and the players’ council did not want to return me the ranking that I deserved?”

She went on: “I lost two years of my career, I lost many nights when I couldn’t sleep, thoughts, anxiety, questions without answers… but I won justice. It turned out that it was a contamination and that the biological passport was a pure invention. And I won something else, my soul remained clean!! I feel disappointed, I feel mad, I feel frustrated, but I do not feel evil even now.”

Halep was one of several current and former players to criticise the ITIA in August after men’s world No 1 Jannik Sinner escaped a ban for failing a drugs test for clostebol. The Italian claimed he had been contaminated via a massage by his physiotherapist who was using Trofodermin to heal a cut of his own, which was then transferred on to Sinner through his dermatitis.

Suggestion of two-tier sanctions

The outcome also sparked a row within the sport about whether integrity chiefs were guilty of imposing inconsistent doping sanctions depending on the player involved.

The following month, the World Anti-Doping Agency lodged an appeal against the decision not to ban Sinner, announcing it was seeking a suspension of between one and two years.

Responding to Halep’s latest attack, the ITIA said in a statement: “We deal with each case based on the facts and evidence, not a player’s name, ranking or nationality. When a prohibited substance is found in a player’s system, we investigate it thoroughly.

“No two cases are the same, they often involve different circumstances, and direct comparisons are not always helpful.

“There are some very important differences in these two cases. The product contaminated in Ms Swiatek’s case was a regulated medication, not a supplement. There was agreement among independent scientific experts surrounding the facts and the player admitted the Anti-Doping Rule Violation.

“We urge players to exercise extreme caution when taking supplements and we are always happy to answer any questions they have.”