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Patrick Mouratoglou admitted his responsibility and his involvement in the doping issue that affected Simona Halep, but his words met the anger from the fans. Many users on X have in fact left very harsh messages against the French coach.
Halep tested positive for Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open and since then she has not played a single official match: a year later, the Romanian tennis player was disqualified for four years. Some users went so far as to say how Mouratoglou never stopped being Serena Williams’ coach and destroyed Simona Halep’s name.
Fans angry with Patrick Mouratoglou: “He destroyed Simona Halep’s name”
Patrick Mouratoglou, in a video published on Instagram, explained: “I feel confident for the future of Simona Halep with her appeal to the CAS because it is an independent tribunal.
We have been able to establish where the contamination comes from. So we proposed her to take collagen and we brought her collagen from a company. This collagen happened to be contaminated, there was no way to know it. But I feel responsible for what happened because it’s my team.
So it’s me basically who brought her this collagen. We have done all possible tests to establish that we are talking about a contamination. I’m very confident that this independent tribunal will recognize that she never did doping, she was a victim, and she has to come back to the court and compete as soon as possible.
It opened my eyes on the fact that any athlete can become contaminated tomorrow because apparently this happens more and more. We’re talking about extremely low levels of something. It has zero effect, but you happen to have in your system something that shouldn’t be there.
Your career is stopped for a period of time that is extremely long. It can affect your whole career, it affects your reputation for a very unfair reason because you have done nothing. The companies that you decide to go with for supplements, you have to be sure at 100% that this cannot happen.” Below you can read some of the harshest comments shared by users on X:
Patrick Mouratoglou finally publically takes responsibility for what happened to Simona and says he is confident in her appeal with the CAS.@pmouratoglou: “I feel responsible for what happened because it’s my team, so me basically, who brought her (Simona) this collagen.” pic.twitter.com/83RGSHUiIt — Romanian Tennis (@WTARomania) November 3, 2023
Patrick Mouratoglou finally publically takes responsibility for what happened to Simona and says he is confident in her appeal with the CAS.@pmouratoglou: “I feel responsible for what happened because it’s my team, so me basically, who brought her (Simona) this collagen.” pic.twitter.com/83RGSHUiIt — Romanian Tennis (@WTARomania) November 3, 2023
He confessed and admitted it’s his fault, i always said him and his academy are the ones to blame.
Even if what he said will not help Simo I hope more people will realize what really happened here. He should be banned from coaching and close his academy, he ruined a career 🐍 https://t.co/gAqCP4GFNR — LorenaPopa 🕵️♀️🎾 (@popalorena) November 4, 2023
This is a big, overdue step from Mouratoglou to take blame for his role in the Halep positive doping test.
Halep still has a challenge at CAS, however, because the amount of Rosa dust at she tested positive for was a much higher concentration than found in the supplement.
https://t.co/aketaLIKmS — Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) November 3, 2023
Patrick Mouratoglou finally publically takes responsibility for what happened to Simona and says he is confident in her appeal with the CAS.@pmouratoglou: “I feel responsible for what happened because it’s my team, so me basically, who brought her (Simona) this collagen.” pic.twitter.com/83RGSHUiIt — Romanian Tennis (@WTARomania) November 3, 2023
