In a major relief for Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova, the Court of Arbitration for Sport today reduced her two-year doping ban to 15 months.
The ruling comes after the Russian start filed an appeal in the court against the ban imposed by an International Tennis Federation in June.
The window of nine months has also given her ample time to return to the sport for next year's French Open.
“The panel found that Ms Sharapova committed an anti-doping rule violation and that while it was with ‘no significant fault’, she bore some degree of fault, for which a sanction of 15 months is appropriate,” read a statement from CAS.
"The panel wishes to point out that the case it heard, and the award it has rendered, was only about the degree of fault that can be imputed to the player for her failure to make sure that the substance contained in a product that she had been taking over a long period remained in compliance with the anti-doping rules,” it further read.
The ban, announced by the International Tennis Federation, is backdated to January 26 this year, when she tested positive for the prohibited substance.
Sharapova had blasted the ban as "unfairly harsh" in a statement on her Facebook page.
