‘Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek doping cases were kept secret – it’s very weird’, claims Simona Halep
Simona Halep has claimed Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek’s failed doping tests were “kept secret” as she labelled the handling of the pair’s cases “very weird.”
In August, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) revealed Sinner avoided a ban after twice testing positive for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid, in March. An independent tribunal ruled the Italian bore “no fault or negligence.”
The tribunal accepted Sinner’s explanation that the substance had entered his body when receiving a massage from his former physio, who had used a spray containing the steroid to treat a cut on his finger.
However, the World Anti-Doping Agency has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over the verdict, seeking to impose a ban of up to two years on Sinner.
Swiatek, meanwhile, tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine in August ahead of the Cincinnati Open.
The ITIA announced last week that Swiatek had received a one-month suspension as it was deemed she carried “no significant fault or negligence.”
Swiatek was provisionally suspended from September 12 to October 4, which means she had already served 22 days of her ban on the day the news was released.
The 23-year-old Pole was forced to miss WTA 1000 events in Beijing and Wuhan during the suspension period.
The five-time Grand Slam champion returned to action at the WTA Finals in Riyadh at the start of November before ending her season at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Malaga.
The world No 2 will be able to compete at her next two scheduled events: the United Cup and the Australian Open.
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Halep was given a four-year ban from tennis in September last year after testing positive for the banned blood doping agent Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open.
In March, the Romanian’s ban was reduced to nine months following her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
This allowed Halep to return to tennis with immediate effect as she had already served more than nine months of her ban, having been unable to play since her positive test in August 2022.
Halep argued there was a “big difference in treatment and judgment” between her doping case and that of other players in an Instagram post last week.
The former world No 1, who claimed the ITIA “has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence”, has once again hit out at the organisation.
“I heard some people said that I didn’t discover the contamination faster,” Halep told Telegraph Sport. “But the substance that I had was so difficult to find.
“You find it in China or somewhere else, I don’t know exactly, and it took time to be delivered so they can make the test. It was not my fault because I didn’t want to find [the contaminant] – you know what I mean?
“What I believe is not fair, either, is that they announced my case straight away, and I got all the heat from the press, and for these two players (Sinner and Swiatek) they kept it secret, and they just said about the case when everything was done, so it’s very weird.
“And I asked also to lift the provisional suspension to be able to play. I said, ‘If you believe in the end that I am guilty, you take the points back and all the money and everything, but let me play,’ because I wanted to keep the rhythm. I asked this about two or three times, but now they (Sinner and Swiatek) could play.”
