The Polish tennis star served a one-month ban last year after testing positive for the banned substance trimetzadine - although the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) ruled that her intake was not intentional - and revealed that she feared the worst when she first learnt of her positive test.

Swiatek told the Served with Andy Roddick podcast: "We met in the evening with my whole team and the doctor, and we first called with a lawyer, I hired him over the phone basically, it was all very confusing.

"Honestly, I was a total mess, I was basically joking, was being sarcastic, because I just had to do something to keep it together.

"When everything came out, I was basically crying for two weeks, couldn’t practice, because I felt that tennis did this to me and that I’m in this place because of tennis.

"I felt like I was losing my integrity, like no one is going to believe me that I didn’t do anything wrong and that the whole world would turn their backs on me and that every accomplishment that I had would start to disappear.

"We started testing all of my substances and medicines that I take, and did the research, but, for most of the days, I tried to block it out."

The six-time Grand Slam winner recalled how she discovered that she had tested positive as she changed locations during a photoshoot in Warsaw.

Swiatek said: "I went on my email and I saw an email from this portal, and I thought it was just a reminder to do my whereabouts or something.

"I didn’t even read it because I started crying, and my agents who were at the shoot thought that someone had died.

"I gave my manager the phone and she read everything. They were, obviously, very confused because no one knows what to do in a situation like that.

"I had no idea if I should even continue the shoot. My face was all red, I was crying for about 40 minutes, but then – on the other hand – I knew that I couldn’t really tell them about it. So I just continued for the next few hours."