LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) - Swedish tennis participant Mikael Ymer was banned for 18 months on Tuesday for lacking three out-of-competition doping exams in a 12-month interval.

The choice got here from the Court of Arbitration for Sport after it partially upheld an attraction from the International Tennis Federation.

“Having already been cleared once, and wholeheartedly standing by the fact that I do not feel that the third offense was committed, I find their decision to try me again and subsequently find me guilty, unfair,” Ymer wrote on Twitter. “On top of that, I find it difficult to comprehend that they found an 18-month suspension to be a just punishment.”

Ymer, who additionally burdened that he has “never … used nor been accused of using banned substances,” was initially charged by the ITF in January 2022 after his third whereabouts violation, at a Challenger event in France the earlier November.

He accepted his first two whereabouts failures however argued that within the third occasion he had modified resort however his agent had not made the required replace. That was upheld by an impartial tribunal, which cleared the participant in June 2022.

The ITF appealed that call the next month, requesting a two-year ban for Ymer, and CAS imposed a barely decrease sanction, discovering that “the degree of fault of the player, a professional and experienced athlete, was high.”

“I understand that these rules have been put in place to protect the integrity of our sport, and that they are there for a reason,” Ymer stated. “However, I do not believe I broke those rules, and my conscience is clear with God as my witness.”

Ymer is at the moment ranked 51st - one under his career-high - and reached the third spherical of Wimbledon after getting back from two units all the way down to defeat No. 9 Taylor Fritz.

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