HOW SAD TO SEE TENNIS PROTECT JANNIK SINNER WITH A NON-SINNER STEROIDS PENALTY
He’s only the world's best player, with three Grand Slams at 23, yet a sport without Nadal and Federer and maybe Djokovic prefers to shield him from harsher punishment when fellow players are enraged
On my 2024 road trip to Indian Wells, known for desert rattlesnakes and Joshua Tree weirdness, Jannik Sinner was changing the way we look at tennis. He didn’t do it on the court, mind you. His physiotherapist cut his finger and treated his gash with an over-the-counter healing spray, which happened to include Clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid that apparently contaminated Sinner when he received a massage.
This is stupidity that defies the higher realms of sport — unless Sinner knew Clostebol was entering his bony system when he weighs only 170 pounds and stands 6 feet 4. If he truly was aware of the illegal substance, he should have been suspended for a year or longer by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Never should a player so gifted, with three Grand Slam titles at age 23, allow his training staff to obtain steroids that would result in two positive doping tests that strangle the sport in double-standard grief.
Turns out Umberto Ferrara did just that and gave it to the physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, who used the spray before he worked on Sinner. That is their story, anyway, and it worked well enough for WADA to suspend the world’s No. 1 player for only three months Saturday. Sinner will not miss a major tournament and will be in your French Open draw on May 25. He’ll be allowed to continue his rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz, who has won four Grand Slams, as tennis sighs in farcical and painful relief after the retirement of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
If Sinner was a lesser player, he’d have been nailed by a much lengthier ban. Instead, his sport benefits from a small percentage of a punishment. We are left to ask why great players are excused and lower-tiered players are spanked hard. Imagine if the NFL or NBA shrugged off doping or gambling violations from superstars. Or, maybe they do. Tennis enters the trap door of insufferable favoritism.
“A lack of consistency,” Novak Djokovic said.
“I don’t believe in a clean sport anymore …” Stan Wawrinka posted.
“Different rules for different players,” Denis Shapovalov said.
Said Nick Kyrgios, who has been suspended often: “A lack of transparency. So wada come out and say it would be a 1-2 year ban. Obviously sinners team has done everything in their power to just go ahead and take a 3 month ban, no titles lost, no prize money lost. Guilty or not? Sad day for tennis. Fairness in tennis does not exist.”
All accountability belongs to Sinner, the Italian, to explain honestly how Clostebol entered his system per the sample. The cut finger and healing spray — doesn’t he view his body as a temple? Two of his major titles, last month’s Australian Open and last year’s U.S. Open, came as he was encircled by WADA and first the International Tennis Integrity Agency. Does he not understand, with Alcaraz on a clean path, that his future will face clouds? Or is he only eyeing the next large trophy?
“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,” Sinner said. “I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realize WADA's strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted WADA's offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a three-month sanction.”
Said his London lawyer, Jamie Singer: “I am delighted that Jannik can finally put this harrowing experience behind him. WADA has confirmed the facts determined by the Independent tribunal. It is clear that Jannik had no intent, no knowledge, and gained no competitive advantage. Regrettably, errors made by members of his team led to this situation.”
Um, isn’t Sinner the lead member of his team?
WADA creates investigative cases only when anti-doping rules appear to be frayed. In Sinner’s situation, the agency mostly understood the bizarre contamination and said so in a statement: “WADA accepts the athlete's explanation for the cause of the violation as outlined in the first instance decision. WADA accepts that Mr. 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 negligence of members of his entourage.”
Then why suspend him for three months? “However,” WADA continued, “under the code and by virtue of precedent, an athlete bears responsibility for the entourage's negligence. Based on the unique set of facts of this case, a three-month suspension is deemed to be an appropriate outcome. As previously stated, WADA did not seek a disqualification of any results, save that which was previously imposed by the tribunal of first instance.”
Would someone explain the unfavorable fine print to Djokovic, Wawrinka, Shapovalov and Kyrgios? Or do the fathers of tennis — whoever they are? — not care? In March, I’ll be back at Indian Wells. Not long ago, I used to see Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and the best of female players. This time, I see one attraction.
Alcaraz, who will win and say nothing about Sinner — a sinner.
Before I go, I’ll stop at a drug store and buy healing spray with Clostebol.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.