Serbian tennis great Novak Djokovic has claimed that the majority of players are not happy with the way the whole process is handled in the case of world no.1 Jannik Sinner’s three-month doping ban.
Sinner has reached a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) which will see the Italian serve a three-month ban.
WADA has accepted that Sinner did not intend to cheat and that his exposure to clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit and took place without his knowledge as the result of the negligence of members of his entourage.
Djokovic claimed that the majority of players believe Sinner was shown “favouritism” with his three-month doping ban.
“There’s a majority of the players that I’ve talked to in the locker room, not just in the last few days, but also last few months, that are not happy with the way this whole process has been handled,” Djokovic was quoted by The Guardian.
“A majority of the players don’t feel it’s fair. A majority of the players feel like there is favouritism happening. It appears that you can almost affect the outcome if you are a top player if you have access to the top lawyer,” he said.
The case involving Sinner was the first of two prominent incidents in tennis that occurred in rapid succession. In November, world No. 2 in women’s tennis Iga Swiatek received a one-month suspension following a positive test for trimetazidine, a medication prescribed for angina.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) acknowledged that the positive result was due to contamination from a medication Swiatek had been using to alleviate jet lag.
In contrast, former world No. 1 Simona Halep received a four-year ban from the ITIA in 2022 following a positive test, although this penalty was subsequently reduced to nine months.
Djokovic further highlighted the “inconsistencies” in the anti-doping system and called it “unfair”.
“Simona Halep and Tara Moore and some other players that are maybe less known that have been struggling to resolve their cases for years, or have got the ban for years … there is so many inconsistencies between the cases,” said Djokovic.
“Sinner has got a suspension for three months because of mistakes and negligence of his team members, who are working on the tour. This is also something that I personally and many other players find strange.
“Now it’s a ripe time for us to really address the system because the system and the structure obviously don’t work for anti-doping, it’s obvious. I hope that shortly the governing bodies are going to come together and try to find a more effective way to deal with these processes. It’s inconsistent, and it appears to be very unfair,” he added.
–IANS
