Mathieu Warnier, Media365: published on Sunday September 29, 2024 at 8:30 p.m.
While Jannik Sinner will have to explain himself again after his positive tests which took place last March in Indian Wells following the appeal filed by WADA, the Italian player’s lawyer questioned the necessity of this new procedure.
Jannik Sinner is ultimately not out of the woods yet. Tested positive for clostebol twice on the sidelines of the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells then cleared by an independent tribunal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), the world number 1 saw the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA ) restart the machine by appealing this decision. While the Italian confided his dissatisfaction this Saturday, it was his lawyer who spoke at length this Sunday in the columns of the transalpine daily La Gazzetta dello Sport. Jamie Singer thus confided that he was also “surprised by the AMA’s appeal” in this matter. Indeed, in his eyes, the elements brought before the ITIA should be sufficient to conclude that there was no desire to resort to doping on the part of Jannik Sinner. “We had hoped that the experience of the three specialists of the sports dispute resolution committee, and their well-supported and documented judgments, would have convinced the parties that the matter had been resolved correctly,” he added.
Singer: ‘The call wasn’t really necessary’
Unable to say when this appeal will be judged by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), Jamie Singer hopes “to be able to close the case in a few months”. Assuring that “no one accuses Jannik Sinner of having benefited from performance thanks to clostebol”, the world number 1’s lawyer declares that it would be “unfair to penalize him in terms of rankings or winnings” before putting pressure on on the agency. “WADA believes that he is in some way responsible for the actions of his team and that is why it is asking that he be sanctioned,” he adds. Suspension is the sanction she seeks for what she considers to be negligence. » To conclude his remarks, Jannik Sinner’s lawyer concedes that “WADA has the full right to take this measure” but adds that he thinks that “the appeal was not really necessary” in view of the conclusions of the independent tribunal of the ITIA. The next few weeks will be decisive for the world number 1, who now risks a suspension that could last between one and two years.
