The Italian said he was “very disappointed and also surprised” by this call on Saturday, after his victory over Russian Roman Safiullin in the round of 16 of the Beijing tournament. “There were three hearings and all three ended very positively for me,” he told the press. At first instance, an independent court concluded that the 23-year-old had committed “no fault or negligence”, a decision “not correct under the applicable rules” according to WADA.
As a result, 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 He had already had his ATP points withdrawn as well as the winnings obtained during the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells, the tournament during which he tested positive and where he reached the semi-finals.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, along with the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, embodies the next generation of the ATP circuit. This season, the two players shared the four Grand Slam tournaments. Three weeks ago, the Italian became the first transalpine player to win at Flushing Meadows.
The defense of over-the-counter spray
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 Health. integrity of tennis (Itia), which accepted his defense and officially cleared him at the end of August.
A case which recalls another and which angered the Circuit
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 “involuntary contamination” and had only lost the results obtained during this competition, without purge 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 WADA classifies it as “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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