Martina Hingis has been banned for 2 years after she was found testing positive for cocaine in a dope test, conducted during the 2007 Wimbledon championship. The Swiss star had appealed against the dope charges, but the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has discarded her appeal. It has declared a ban to be effective from 1 October, 2007. Hingis, who has won WTA singles title 43 times in her entire career, had just revived her game in 2006 after a gap of three years.
The tennis superstar had tested positive during the customary urine test performed after she lost to Laura Granville at the third round of the tournament. The five-time Grand Slam winner had previously defended herself persistently by saying that she was

100% innocent.

She asserted her innocence by proclaiming that her hair test, which can prove whether a person has consumed cocaine or not), was negative. The 27 year old former world number one not only retired from international sports after the doping revelation, she also had to surrender her ranking points and prize money both from the then ongoing Wimbledon series and any succeeding contests. In the month of November, 2007, her spokesperson Mario Widmer told BBC Sports,

She will be fighting this, of course. You can be clear about that.

Later, ITF issued a statement that said,

Following a two-day hearing in December 2007, an independent anti-doping tribunal found that a sample provided by Ms Hingis on 29 June 2007 at the Wimbledon Championships had tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine...The tribunal rejected the suggestion made on behalf of Ms Hingis that there were doubts about the identity and/or integrity of the sample attributed to her...The tribunal also rejected Ms Hingis’s plea of no (or no significant) fault or negligence, on the basis that no mitigation was possible as it had not been shown how the cocaine entered her system.

It is expected that millions of her fans across the globe will be deeply disheartened by the news of her suspension term.

Source:bbc