Jannik Sinner critics slammed by Andy Roddick in staunch defence of world No 1

Jannik Sinner has received the backing of former world No 1 Andy Roddick amid controversy surrounding his two failed drug tests.
It emerged early this week that world No 1 Sinner had twice tested positive for anabolic steroid clostebol back in March, and would be stripped of his Indian Wells prize money and ranking points.
However, the Australian Open champion has not faced a suspension and was allowed to continue playing amid the investigation into the violations, after he was found to be of “no fault”.
Investigators accepted his explanation that was was accidentally contaminated by his physio, who had used trofodermin – a skin cream containing clostebol – on his own cut, and then inadvertently transmitted it to Sinner.
Despite being cleared by the ITIA, the 23-year-old has faced scepticism and criticism from some quarters, with some fans even suggesting he should be stripped of his Australian Open title from January.
However, speaking on Served with Andy Roddick, the US star and former US Open backed Sinner – and slammed excessive criticism of the current world No 1.
Roddick said: “There’s also a lot of noise online and people saying ‘take away his win in January, he beat my favourite player there’. Stop it.
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“We get tested at every Grand Slam, so there’s no way he wasn’t clean at the Australian Open. The amount in his system is a billionth of a gram, which is 58,000 times smaller than a grain of salt – which is entirely consistent with the explanation.
“The explanation is that the physio had a cut, he tried to treat it with a cream that is legal in his home country. He’s massaging Jannik. Jannik apparently has psoriasis, the cream got into the wound and that’s how they think the test showed it.
“It’s quite simple, but imperfect.”
In a statement released when the announcement was made, Sinner said: “I will now put this challenging and deeply unfortunate period behind me.
“I will continue to do everything I can to ensure I continue to comply with the ITIA’s anti-doping programme and I have a team around me that are meticulous in their own compliance.”
The Italian has not spoken publicly since then but received a strongly supportive reception from the US Open crowd when practising inside the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday.
He will hope to put this chapter behind him ahead of his US Open campaign, with the tournament starting on Monday.
The Italian faces Mackenzie McDonald in round one and, much like at Wimbledon, is projected to face fifth seed Daniil Medvedev in the quarter-final and third seed Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final, with second seed Novak Djokovic spearheading the bottom half of the draw.
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