The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced Saturday that its appeal in the doping case of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, who was found by an independent tribunal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to be neither at fault nor negligent after testing positive twice for clostebol, a banned substance, in March 2024.
WADA considers that the finding of no ‘fault or negligence’ was not correct under the applicable rules and for this reason requests a period of ineligibility for the player of between one and two years. WADA is not seeking disqualification of any results – in particular the Miami, Cincinnati and US Open titles – other than those already imposed by the court of first instance.
It should be remembered that by testing positive during the Indian Wells tournament, the Italian, who is now competing in the China Open, lost the points (400) from his semi-final in California and the prize money. Sinner explained to the court that the low amounts of clostebol found in his system were due to his physiotherapist using a medicine contaminated with the anabolic steroid, which he ‘passed on’ when he gave him a bare-handed massage. For this reason, he received a minor sanction: he was suspended on 4 and 5 April and from 17 to 20 April.
WADA concludes in its statement that ‘as this matter is now pending before CAS, WADA will not comment further at this time’.
Sinner comments on the matter
The world number one has spoken about it after his victory over Roman Safiullin at the ATP 500 in Beijing, which sent him into the quarter-finals of the tournament where he is defending last year’s title. “Obviously I’m very disappointed with this appeal, I was very surprised because we had three hearings during the whole process with the ITIA and all three were positive for me. I didn’t expect it, to be honest,” he confessed.
In addition, the tennis player went further in his statements, although he preferred to be cautious about the final decision of this process. “I was informed two days ago that they were going to present this appeal and I was told that the news would be made public today. I don’t know, maybe the World Anti-Doping Agency just want to make sure that everything is correct, but it was a surprise for me. There are things you can’t control,” he concluded.
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