Five-time tennis Grand Slam champion and the world’s highest-paid female athlete, Maria Sharapova has just announced that she had tested positive for the recently banned drug meldonium at the Australian Open this January.

The Russia born World Tennis champion made the shocking announcement at a media conference in Los Angeles; Many had assumed she would announce her retirement from the tennis game due to her lingering injuries, but they received the surprise of their life as she revealed she had been under a performance enhancer since 2006. She admitted having taken meldonium, a drug which had only been added to the prohibited list last September and came into effect on 1 January, 2016.

She is most likely to face up to four years on the sidelines, even though 12-24 months is most probably the least punishment if her actions are deemed unintentional by the tennis governing body.

Subsequently, two of her sponsors; Nike and Porsche have suspended ties with Maria, following her violation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) use of meldonium as a performance enhancer.

For some of her fans and admirers, Could she had been so naïve not to have known that the drug was now banned, and was it simply an oversight on her part. This are questions she alone can answer, while the final judgement lies with the body responsible for punishing offenders of such sport crime.

Read more: http://www.naijasilvergold.com/blog/2016/03/08/former-tennis-number-one-fails-drug-test/