Development in the case of world No.1 Jannik Sinner: the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced this Saturday that it had appealed and is calling for a suspension of the Italian player ranging from one to two years.
While he had been cleared by the International Agency for the Integrity of Tennis (Itia) after having tested positive twice for clostéboland anabolic steroidin March, Jannik Sinner is caught up in an affair likely to shake up the hierarchy at the top of world tennis. It is now the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which must decide in this case involving the winner of the Australian Open and the US Open. At first instance, an independent court concluded that the 23-year-old Italian player had not committed “no fault or negligence”a decision “not correct according to the applicable rules” according to the AMA. Consequently, the anti-doping body based in Montreal “requests a suspension period of one to two years” against Jannik Sinner. He had already had his ATP points withdrawn as well as the winnings obtained during the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells, the tournament during which he tested positive and where he reached the semi-finals.
Jannik Sinner, who qualified this Saturday for the quarter-finals of the Beijing tournament, embodies with the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, the next generation of the ATP circuit. This season, the two players shared the four Grand Slam tournaments. Three weeks ago, Sinner became the first Italian player to win at Flushing Meadows.
Spray for free sale
In full rise after winning his first major title, in Melbourne, Sinner had undergone two positive doping tests in March 2024 eight days apart: on March 10 during the Indian Wells tournament and on March 18 out of competition, but just before the Miami tournament. Trace amounts of clostebol were found in his urine. Both times, the player appealed, which allowed him to reduce his automatic suspensions (from April 4 to 5 for the first, from April 17 to 20 for the second). The Italian defended himself by explaining that he had suffered “contamination by a member of his staff, who had applied an over-the-counter spray containing clostebol to his own hand to treat a small injury”according to the International Agency for Tennis Integrity (Itia) which accepted his defense and officially cleared him at the end of August.
Outraged reactions from players
This file recalls that of his compatriot Marco Bortolotti: tested positive for clostebol during the ATP Challenger tournament in Lisbon in October 2023, the Italian had also established the “unintentional contamination” and had only lost the results obtained during this competition, without serving any suspension. Itia’s decision to whitewash the native of Trentino-Alto Adige sparked outraged reactions from certain players, including the Australian Nick Kyrgios and the Frenchman Lucas Pouille. Before the US Open, Sinner had separated from his physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi, believed to have unintentionally contaminated him, and from his physical trainer, Umberto Ferrara, who had provided Naldi with the incriminated spray.
Since clostebol is not naturally produced by the body, no notion of threshold comes into account: it is enough to detect its presence for an anti-doping test to be considered positive. The AMA classifies it in the “anabolic androgenic steroids”a long list of testosterone derivatives capable of stimulating muscle growth, without however explaining what quantity would have a significant effect on performance.
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