“I haven’t done anything wrong.” So read the back-page headline on Saturday’s Melbourne Ageabove a plaintive-looking photograph of world No1 Jannik Sinner.
As the sport of tennis continues to wrestle with lingering doping controversies, its bosses have also been fending off a few awkward enquiries from the floor. Their official position, regarding both Sinner and his fellow US Open champion Iga Swiatek, is that protocol has been followed to the letter.
And yet, even the playing body appears to have its doubts. On Friday, the International Tennis Integrity Agency held two briefing sessions with agents and coaches in Melbourne. According to an ITIA spokesperson, the intention was to “run through the recent cases, lay out the facts and answer questions”. One of those questions being how Sinner was able to play through 2024 without interruption, despite two positive tests for the banned steroid Clostebol.
The new season’s first grand slam thus begins under the shadow of last season’s positive doping tests, and the saga is far from finished. After an appeal from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) announced on Friday that it has selected April 16 and 17 for a rehearing of Sinner’s case.
Thus far, former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios has been the most outspoken critic of Sinner’s initial exoneration, repeatedly claiming on social media that it proves tennis is “cooked”. Kyrgios is, after all, a noted controversialist. But it’s not just him.
Other players in the locker room have privately questioned whether Sinner is being treated more leniently because of his position at the top of the world rankings. Indeed, others have mischievously discussed his Italian nationality, at a time when both the chairman and chief executive of the ATP Tour are also from Italy.
And such scepticism was only fanned by the fact that Swiatek – Sinner’s counterpart as world No1 for the majority of 2024 – was also able to keep her own positive test for the banned substance Trimetazidine out of the public domain for the best part of three months. (On November 29, Swiatek was eventually revealed to have served a month’s ban during late September and early October, a period when she had initially claimed to be too tired and distracted to compete.)
News of Sinner’s positive tests had been released on August 23, around five months after the tests were conducted. In both cases, the delay is explained by the fact that the players managed to successfully challenge their own provisional suspensions within the prescribed 10-day window. “It is historically unusual for any provisional suspension appeal to be successful,” an ITIA spokesperson told Telegraph Sport on Saturday, “so two in quick succession is extremely rare.”
While the ITIA found Swiatek to bear “no significant fault or negligence” for taking a contaminated dose of melatonin (a sleep hormone which is permitted by Wada guidelines), Sinner went one better. He was cleared of any responsibility for the presence of clostebol in his body, on the grounds that his fitness trainer, Giacomo Naldi, had contaminated him during a routine massage.
Yet the case has already caused significant damage to Sinner’s image, both inside and outside the bubble of Melbourne Park. On Thursday, he arrived on site for the Australian Open draw, carrying the same Norman Brookes Challenge Cup that he lifted for the first time here last year. During the live broadcast of the event on YouTube, a scrolling feed of viewers’ comments featured countless scabrous references to his positive test. The clumsy nickname “Dopinner” came up again and again.
And now we wait for the appeal. It should be stressed that Wada is not contesting the details of Sinner’s defence, which revolves around Naldi performing a massage after using an over-the-counter spray – available only in Italy, and containing Clostebol – to treat a cut finger on his own hand.
Rather, Wada’s argument is that you must bear at least some responsibility for what ends up in your body, whether you know how it got there or not. If ignorance were a bulletproof defence, a trainer could treat an athlete with any substance as long as it remained anonymous – just like coaches from the former East Germany feeding their athletes steroids under the guise of vitamin pills.
The outlook for Sinner is worrying, because all the precedents suggest that Cas usually opt for a middle way between the two sides. That could potentially mean a shift from “no fault or negligence” to “no significant fault or negligence”, followed by a short ban. While one month would count as a mild penalty, anything in the range of three to six months could mean an enforced absence from both the French Open and Wimbledon, and possibly the cancellation of his US Open title defence as well.
The most remarkable thing about Sinner’s dominant showing in New York last September was that the tournament started only six days after news of his positive tests had been released. He gave a calm and self-assured press conference before his first-round match, and then compartmentalised so effectively on the court that he dropped only two sets all fortnight.
On Friday in Melbourne, however, there was a sense that Sinner’s energy reserves are starting to deplete. Asked how he continued to block out all the noise, he showed signs of frustration for the first time. “I don’t think I have to answer this, to be honest,” Sinner replied. “I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s why I’m still here. That’s why I’m still playing. I don’t want to respond on what Nick said or what other players says.”
As we prepare for Sunday’s first-round matches to begin at Melbourne Park, Sinner remains the favourite to win a third major title – and thus to extend his unbeaten hard-court run at the majors to over a year.
But as the aftershocks of Sinner’s doping case continue to reverberate, his nerve is sure to be tested. It would be almost miraculous to rise above such distractions for a second straight slam.
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