Teenager tennis player to appeal doping ban

Bulgarian teenager Sesil Karatantcheva confirmed today she would appeal against a two-year ban for doping.

Bulgarian teenager Sesil Karatantcheva confirmed today she would appeal against a two-year ban for doping.

"I'm going to appeal against the decision of the ITF at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland," she told journalists in Sofia the day after the International Tennis Federation suspension was handed down.

An independent anti-doping tribunal ruled samples given by the 16-year-old at the French Open last May and out of competition in Tokyo in July had tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone.

Karatantcheva told French sports daily L'Equipe the high level of nandrolone in her system was due to a pregnancy that later ended in miscarriage. A pregnancy test carried out by a French lab on the player's urine sample, however, was negative, the paper said.