There's a whole number of ways someone can flip Maria's failed drugs test. For pretty much her entire career, she's been at the centre of tennis. She's won five grand slams and an Olympic silver medal at London 2012. She's 28.
If you take Sharapova's statements literally, then it was an honest mistake - stupid at least. From what she said at last Monday's press conference, she says she received the list as an email attachment from Wada. She says she didn't open up the email. There are so many ways you can look at this, how much trust do you place in your doctors? This is where sports psychology comes in - does this place unnecessary stress onto someone who has to perform day in, day out?
Having said that, if you look more closely at what this drug actually is, it appears as though it's one which you only take for about 2 weeks at a time - why was she taking it for 10 years?
Legally speaking, this now falls to the ITF, WADA and her team to investigate what happened and the circumstances leading up to this. She'll be given a suspension (pretty much for certain), it just falls to this investigation process to determine whether she deliberately took the drug knowing it was banned or took it without knowing it was banned which would class as negligence. According to WADA it was added to the banned list because of "evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance".
Whatever you believe, we'll doubtless hear the truth eventually!
