Indian Tennis Player Somani Receives Four-Year Doping Ban

On July 31, 2025, Indian tennis player Parikshit Somani's urine sample at the ATP Challenger in Astana, Kazakhstan, tested positive for trimetazidine. An independent tribunal suspended him for four years under tennis anti-doping rules. The 26-year-old, who reached a career-high doubles ranking of No. 256, was provisionally suspended on September 23, 2025 and remains ineligible until September 2029. The tribunal disqualified his Astana results and subsequent results through that provisional suspension date, with loss of ranking points, prize money and awards. In late 2025, while provisionally suspended, Somani accessed the ITIA's player support programme to investigate prospective contamination sources; the products tested negative for trimetazidine at a WADA-accredited laboratory in Salt Lake City, USA. He presented a food contamination explanation in February 2026, which became the basis of his case at the hearing on 19 August 2026. After considering expert scientific opinions from both sides, the tribunal called the theories scientifically implausible, highly speculative and unconvincing. It found he had not established the source of the substance and that no mitigating circumstances applied. Contested: One account lists ineligibility until 22 September 2029; others state September 2029.