Brisbane, Dec 29 Serbian tennis great Novak Djokovic, who is chasing his record 25th Grand Slam title at the 2025 Australian Open, admitted to being frustrated after players were kept out of the loop regarding the doping case against men’s world number 1 Jannik Sinner.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirmed that it lodged an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against Sinner, who was found by an independent tribunal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to bear no fault or negligence having twice tested positive for clostebol, a prohibited substance, in March 2024.
"I'm not questioning whether (Sinner) took the banned substance intentionally or not. We've had plenty of players in the past and are currently under suspension for not even testing positive for banned substances.
"Some players with lower rankings have been waiting for their case to be resolved for over a year. I've been really frustrated... to see we've been kept in the dark for at least five months (on the Sinner case).
"The ATP hasn't really talked in depth about it. Why have they kept that case away from the public? We see Simona Halep's case on the WTA Tour, now Iga Swiatek's case," Djokovic said.
Meanwhile, Poland’s Iga Swiatek, who was the women’s world number one at the time, served a one-month suspension after testing positive for Trimetazidine (TMZ), a banned heart medication.
The ITIA accepted that her positive test resulted from contamination in her melatonin supplements, ending her ban on December 4.
"It's not a good image for our sport. I'm just questioning the way the system works and why certain players aren't treated the same as others. Maybe some ranking reasons are behind it, or some players have more financial backing and stronger legal teams to tackle these cases," he added.
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