Iga Swiatek’s one-month suspension for unintentionally taking the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) comes down to picograms. World No. 2 Swiatek’s positive test, recorded August 12 and communicated to her alongside a provisional suspension September 12, detected 50 picograms of TMZ per milliliter of urine, which doping experts call a trace amount.
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A picogram is 1,000th of a nanogram; there are one billion nanograms in a gram. Not the sort of usage that would provide any advantage in a tennis match.
Combined with Swiatek submitting her medications and supplements to independent laboratories alongside hair samples, those numbers led the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to accept her explanation that she had taken
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