MILAN (Agencies): World number one Jannik Sinner has accepted an immediate three-month ban from tennis after reaching a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency over his two positive drugs tests last year.
The 23-year-old Italian, who won the Australian Open last month, is suspended from 9 February until 4 May. He will be eligible to play at the French Open – the next Grand Slam of the year – which starts on 19 May. Sinner had previously been cleared of any wrongdoing by an independent panel after testing positive for the banned substance clostebol in March.
Wada had been seeking a ban of up to two years, having launched an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) over the 2024 decision by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) not to suspend Sinner.
In a statement on Saturday, Wada said it accepted the three-time Grand Slam champion “did not intend to cheat”, that the drug “did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit” and this happened “without his knowledge as the result of negligence of members of his entourage”.
It means the Cas hearing will not take place, but Sinner will serve a three-month suspension as “under the code and by virtue of Cas precedent, an athlete bears responsibility for the entourage’s negligence”. In a statement released by his lawyers, Sinner said: “This case had been hanging over me 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.
“I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realise 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.”
Tennis has seen some high-profile doping cases over the past six months, with leading female player Iga Swiatek accepting a one-month suspension in November after testing positive for a banned substance when she was world number one. News of Sinner’s positive tests was announced in August, shortly before the US Open – which he would go on to win.
The ITIA said at the time that the panel found Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” for testing positive for low levels of a metabolite of clostebol – a steroid that can be used to build muscle mass. It accepted he had been inadvertently contaminated by his physiotherapist, who was treating a cut on his hand with an over-the-counter spray, which was later found to contain the banned substance.
But Wada lodged an appeal with Cas last September, stating at the time that the finding of “no fault or negligence” was not correct under the applicable rules, with a hearing scheduled for 16-17 April.
Wada has now officially withdrawn its Cas appeal and, having accepted the ban, Sinner will not be able to train until 13 April. The next tournament he can play is in the clay-court Italian Open, which begins on 7 May. He will miss prestigious hard-court tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami – where he is the defending champion – as well as many of the clay tournaments before the French Open. The ITIA says Wada’s outcome supports its initial findings.
