Indian tennis player Parikshit Somai handed four-year doping ban

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE: Parikshit Somani is barred from competing, coaching or attending any tennis events during his four-year ban. | Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

Indian tennis player Parikshit Somani has been handed a four-year ban after an independent tribunal upheld an anti-doping violation for trimetazidine, a prohibited substance detected in a sample collected during an ATP Challenger tournament in Astana, Kazakhstan, last year.

The 26-year-old, who reached a career-high doubles ranking of 256, was provisionally suspended from 23 September 2025 and will remain ineligible until 22 September 2029, with the time already served under provisional suspension counted towards the sanction.

During his suspension, Somani used the ITIA’s player support programme to test several possible contamination sources, but all samples analysed at a WADA-accredited lab in Salt Lake City came back negative for trimetazidine.

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At an August 2026 hearing, he argued that food prepared by a family member had been contaminated by that person’s medication, a theory the tribunal rejected as “scientifically implausible”, “highly speculative” and “unconvincing” after reviewing expert evidence from both sides.

The panel concluded that Somani had not proved how the banned substance entered his system, meaning no mitigating circumstances applied under tennis anti-doping rules, and imposed the standard four-year period of ineligibility.

While banned, he is barred from competing in, coaching at or attending events organised or sanctioned by World Tennis, the ATP, WTA, the Grand Slam tournaments or any national federation.