Sania Mirza responds to allegations of asking for Venus Williams' medical data
Following a hack into the servers of the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, the medical histories of severa promninent athletes – among them former World No. 1s Serena and Venus Williams, were made public by a group of Russian hackers who call themselves 'Fancy Bears’.
The sisters were found to be taking medications as TUEs or Therapeutic Use Exemptions, which an athlete can receive from the governing body of his or her sport should they need to use medication that is otherwise on the ‘banned’ list by their federation or WADA.
Read more: Venus, Serena Williams respond to WADA hack
Now it has been alleged that Naseema Mirza, the mother of doubles World No. 1 Sania, communicated to the All-India Tennis Association or AITA that she wanted access to the medical files of the older Williams sister.
A source at the AITA alleged yesterday in a statement that “..."She informed that Williams sisters have failed Wada dope test and we should take it up with the IOA and IOC.”
Williams and her partner Rajeev Ram, who made up Team USA at the mixed doubles at the recently-concluded Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, beat the Indian combine of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles, with the American combine going on to win silver, while the Indians lost their bronze medal match to Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
The top-ranked women’s doubles player has now issued a statement via tweet saying she did no such thing. Accompanying the tweet is a photograph of a letter issued by the AITA that says neither Mirza nor mother Naseema demanded information regarding Williams’ medication.
More details are awaited.