Nick Kyrgios did not fail his reputation when he was asked to comment on the doping cases targeting Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek: “it is to disgust you”, he said on Saturday before resuming competition in Brisbane, after long months of absence.
“Me, I can lose my nerve, throw my racket, but that has nothing to do with cheating and taking performance-enhancing products,” said the Australian, who has hardly played any more on the tour since the 2022 U.S. Open due to injuries.
Pressed to confirm he was calling the world No 1 a cheater, Kyrgios replied: “He tested positive twice at different times. If he hadn’t done anything wrong, why were his bonuses and ATP points taken away? They clearly felt something bad had happened.”
Twice in March 2024, minute traces of clostebol (steroid) were found in Sinner’s body, who was briefly suspended each time. But the Italian pleaded ignorance and above all contamination, and was completely cleared by the International Agency for Integrity in Tennis (Itia) before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed. A decision is awaited.
“If you think that’s how it got into his system, then…” Kyrgios commented to support his own disbelief.
A few months after Sinner, the Polish Iga Swiatek was also suspended for a month for doping after the discovery in August of trimetazidine in her body. Here too, Itia accepted the contamination excuse.
“Two world No. 1s (Swiatek is currently No. 2 but she was No. 1 at the time of the test, editor’s note) who are caught for doping is disgusting for our sport. It gives a horrible image,” said Kyrgios.
“Integrity in tennis at the moment, everyone knows it but no one wants to talk about it, it’s horrible,” he insisted.
Due to knee and wrist injuries, the 2022 Wimbledon finalist has only played four matches (three in Tokyo in October 2022 and one in Stuttgart in June 2023) since his defeat in the quarter-finals of the US Open 2022.
In recent months, it was his wrist that had been a problem.
“I’m going to play and we’ll see day by day. If I play a long match and I get through it, we’ll see how I feel the next day,” he explained before facing the terrible French server Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the first round in Brisbane.
