Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek failed drug tests should not ‘strike fear’ into tennis players
The 2024 tennis year has been dominated by failed drug tests for two of the sport’s biggest stars, with the fall-out from Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek’s failed drug tests continuing to rock the sport.
Five-time Grand Slam champion and world No 2 Swiatek accepted a ban of one month, the majority of it served secretly as a provisional suspension, after testing positive for the angina drug trimetazidine.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted it was caused by contamination of the regulated non-prescription medication melatonin, with the company that supplied the drug used to aid sleeping issuing an apology for the contamination.
The Swiatek news came only three months after men’s world No 1 Sinner was cleared of any fault over two positive tests in March, with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealing against that verdict and calling for a one to two-year ban for the Italian.
Now it has emerged that two-time Grand Slam doubles winner Max Purcell has been provisionally suspended for violating tennis’ anti-doping rules.
The 26-year-old Australian accepted the suspension, admitting to violating Article 2.2 of the Tennis Anti-Doping Program “relating to the use of a Prohibited Method”, with the suspension effective as of December 12.
“During the provisional suspension, Purcell is prohibited from playing in, coaching at, or attending any tennis event authorised or sanctioned by the members of the ITIA (ATP, ITF, WTA, Tennis Australia, Federation Francaise de Tennis, Wimbledon and USTA) or any national association,” the ITIA statement read.
The inevitable outcome of these high-profile failed doping cases is a mood of trepidation in tennis locker rooms as players fear they might be next to fail a doping test, with ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse telling Tennis365 that they are not intending to strike fear into players.
Instead, the message from the ITIA chief is to encourage all players to appreciate that they have a responsibility to ensure any supplements they decide to take fall within the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code of conduct.
“It’s all about getting the right balance. You don’t want them to be fearful, but you do want them to be mindful,” Moorhouse told Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.
“The anti-doping code places significant responsibilities on players. It requires you to take steps to make sure you don’t breach it.
“If one outcome of the cases we have seen this year is it has made players sit up, pause and reflect on the supplements they are taking, whether they need to take those supplements and if there are better supplements they could be taking to protect themselves, then that is a good outcome from those cases.
“We don’t want players to be fearful, but we want them to be mindful of their obligations under the rules and we also want them to know who we are if they have any questions.
“There are updates to the WADA prohibited list every year and they don’t tend to be fundamental changes. The list has been in place for some time now.
“We send out those changes in December and we make sure we make every effort to ensure the players are aware of that list.
“There is a strict liability principle that an athlete is responsible for what is in their body, so once you get a positive test, it’s up to the athlete to explain why.”
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Oliver Niggli, director of WADA, spoke about the Sinner and Swiatek cases during an interview with L’Equipe last month and he suggested the improvements in testing methods may now be highlighting positive doping cases that fall below the threshold of performance-enhancing substances.
That has led to suggestions the threshold for the levels of a prohibited substance identified in an athlete may need to be lowered, but that approach would have to be considered carefully, according to ITIA chief Moorhouse.
“We follow the WADA prohibited list and as a sport, we don’t have the discretion to change something on that list,” continues the ITIA chief.
“We are required to follow the WADA guidelines in the format they decide and they are obviously guided by top-level scientists.
“It’s a really interesting discussion that with the testing now being so accurate, do we run the risk of picking up really minor levels of contamination, which is not where we all want to be focusing our efforts.
“The counter-argument to that is the risk of micro-dosing. There are some incredibly smart people who would wish to circumvent rules in sports, generally.
“Getting that balance between not getting those small levels of prohibited substances that are a result of contamination versus not creating an opportunity for people to micro-dose and know what they can get away with is I’m sure what is exercising the minds of very smart scientists within WADA.
“A bit of comfort for players is there are hundreds of thousands of tests done across all sport every year and there are still a relatively small number of cases related to contamination and it’s important that things are seen in that perspective.
“Our focus is to continue to push education to the players and the support personnel around the player so that they can mitigate the risk they could be exposed to.”
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Tennis365 will have lots more from our extended interview with ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse in the coming days.
