Maria Sharapova timeline: 10 years that resulted in the world's most famous female athlete failing a drug test

Sharapova revealed that she failed a drug test after taking meldonium over the course of the last decade, with the substance outlawed at the start of this year

(2006 Getty Images)

Maria Sharapova’s admission that she has taken a banned performance enhancing drug has threatened to derail the sport of tennis just weeks after an alleged corruption scandal was exposed, but the Russian’s case stems back to 2006 when she first began taking the substance.

Both the World Anti-Doping Agency [Wada] and the International Tennis Federation] have confirmed the positive drug test, which occurred at the Australian Open in January, in which the substance meldonium was banned after being legal throughout Sharapova’s career.

Here, we recount the process of how the world’s highest-earning female athlete came to be provisionally banned after failing a drug test.

2006 – Sharapova begins taking meldonium after being prescribed the blood flow drug by a family-approved doctor, with the substance not banned by the Wada. Sharapova has since admitted that meldonium is “one of the medications, along with several others, that I had received”.

January 2015 – Wada starts to monitor the use of meldonium after evidence begins to emerge that healthy athletes are using it to gain an advantage as it can improve cardiovascular endurance.

22 December 2015 – Wada announces that meldonium will be banned after “evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance” was discovered.

1 January 2016 – Meldonium is added to Wada’s banned substances list, with an email sent out to all athletes with the changes for 2016. Sharapova admits she did not click the link in the email to read the list of banned substances, and neither did her management or coaching team.

26 January 2016 – Sharapova provides a sample that is positive for meldonium on the same day that she is knocked out of the Australian Open in the quarter-finals by Serena Williams. The match in Melbourne proves to be Sharapova’s last game of 2016 due to injury.

29 February 2016 – Sharapova withdraws from her scheduled appearance at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in California due to her left forearm injury, unaware that she has provided a positive drug test the month before.

2 March 2016 – Sharapova is informed via a letter from the ITF that she has failed a drug test after testing positive for meldonium, a ruling that she accepts without requesting a second sample be tested.

7 March 2016 – In a hastily arranged press conference in Los Angeles, Sharapova publicly reveals that she has failed a drug test, having knowingly taken meldonium for the last decade.

12 March 2016 – Sharapova will be provisionally suspended by the ITF for taking a “non-specified substance under the Wada list of Prohibited Substances and Prohibited Methods, pending determination of the case”.

Sharapova could face a competitive ban of up to four years, but given the circumstances of the regulation breach and the recent change in the state of meldonium’s allowance, she is likely to face a one-year suspension. The Wada president, Craig Reedie, confirmed on Monday night that most cases involving meldonium result in a 12-month ban.