Strip cheating Sharapova of all her Grand Slam titles won unfairly

SIMONE Halep is probably best known for her decision to have a breast reduction procedure a couple of years ago. Actually, she should be best remembered for winning Wimbledon in 2014. Except, she didn’t.

Sara Errani is a 29-year-old veteran whose best Wimbledon performance is reaching the third round. However, she should be in the record books as winner of the 2012 French Open. Except, she isn’t.

The same applied to Serena Williams at the 2004 Wimbledon, Justine Henin at the 2006 US Open and Ana Ivanovic at the 2008 Australian Open. All three should have one more Grand Slam title to write on their CVs. Except, they don’t.

Blame Maria Sharapova for that.

Sharapova, officially a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, a former world No1 and the richest sportswoman on the planet – when taking her endorsements and businesses into consideration – is currently serving a twoyear ban for testing positive for the recently-banned drug meldonium. The fact that it has only been classified as a performance-enhancing substance from the beginning of the year doesn’t mean that it wasn’t performance-enhancing for the previous 10 years that Sharapova admits to having taken the drug.

In fact, if reports close to the story are correct – and there seems no overwhelming evidence to suggest they aren’t correct – then it appears that when Sharapova was working her way through the women’s draw at those Grand Slam tournaments, she was shovelling meldonium down – and it wasn’t for medicinal purposes..

Now, through crocodile tears, Sharapova reacted to the confirmation of her two-year ban, after which she will be 31, by saying she would fight it through the Court of Arbitration of Sport. This is the highest appeals facility available.

She should spare the time and expense, it smacks more of a defence mechanism and damage limitation than a genuine attempt at proving she was “clean”.

In sport there is always a winner and a loser, and when Sharapova stood and emotionally addressed the crowds in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York, there was always a beaten finalist left to stew in their own thoughts. Williams, Henin, Ivanovic, Halep and Errani were five such victims of the Sharapova decade of cheating.

Imagine how the careers, especially of Halep and Errani, and to a lesser extent Ivanovic, would have changed had Sharapova not been juiced when they took her on in those finals.

As well as the string of opponents beaten earlier in the draws who might have gone at least one round deeper had the pin-up girl of the sport not been on something performance-enhancing.

It’s not to suggest that Sharapova would have been a player languishing outside the world’s top 50 if she wasn’t on meldonium.

However, at the top end of the sport it’s the little margins that make the difference, and there is no doubt that the drug gave her that advantage when the chips were down.

It has also emerged that the drug was part of the systematic Russian state doping programme.

Nike have been one of the big sponsors who are still sticking to the Sharapova brand, and this is surprising. Despite her being found guilty, that seems to be adapting to the policy of innocent until proven guilty after appealing to the CAS. Then again, Sharapova is a walking billboard, so they probably reckon no publicity is bad publicity.

Sharapova’s “abuse” of meldonium is no way in the same ballpark as the systematic abuse over many years by the likes of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, or that of a sprinter like Ben Johnson, but the end result should be the same.

The Tour de France has an era which is called “the dark years”, whereby no winner has been declared, the reason being that so many of the cyc- lists who finished behind the American in those races also subsequently tested positive.

However, the situation with tennis is different. Those five opponents beaten by Sharapova in those finals haven’t shown up as being positive, so the solution would be to strip the Russian of her Grand Slam titles and award them to the runners-up. That would nudge Williams – beaten in last week’s French Open final – to 22, alongside Steffi Graf. Henin would have risen to eight titles, Ivanovic to two and Halep and Errani would be able to call themselves Grand Slam champions.

Even if it’s years after the fact, it’s still not too late.