Former top 20 player Varvara Lepchenko handed 4-year doping ban

Former Top 20 player Varvara Lepchenko was given a four-year doping suspension on Friday by the International Tennis Federation.

The ban comes after she tested positive for a banned stimulant during a tournament last year. Her lawyer, Howard Jacobs, wrote in an email to The Associated Press that Lepchenko intends to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The 35-year-old Lepchenko, who has represented the United States in the Summer Olympics and at what is now known as the Billie Jean King Cup, took the doping test after a first-round loss at the Hungarian Grand Prix last July.

She went on to appear in three other tournaments — including winning the title at an event in Charleston, South Carolina, offering $115,000 in total prize money — before being provisionally suspended in August. This was Lepchenko’s second doping violation, but the International Tennis Federation said she is being penalized as if it were her first because it was determined she was not at fault in the other case — which involved testing positive in 2016 for meldonium, the heart medication that led to Maria Sharapova's doping ban.