When will Jannik Sinner discover if he will be suspended from tennis?
The biggest moment of the 2025 tennis season my not take place on court, with Jannik Sinner’s ongoing battle to avoid a suspension following his failed drug test set to dominate the agenda in the first half of the new year.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has appealed against the verdict from tennis doping chiefs at the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) not to suspend world No 1 Sinner after banned steroid clostebol was found to be in his system after a doping test in March.
Sinner went on to enjoy a sensational 2025 that included wins at the US Open, ATP Finals and Davis Cup, but there is an expectation that he will face a suspension if the WADA appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) finds goes against the Italian.
While WADA has requested a one to two-year suspension for Sinner, the 23-year-old will be hoping for a very different outcome after suggesting the intervention may just a case of clarifying the initial ITIA decision.
“I’m very disappointed and also surprised by the appeal, to be honest. I was not expecting it. Maybe they just want to make sure everything is in the right position,” said Sinner after WADA confirmed their intention to appeal.
An ITIA statement following the WADA appeal read: “The ITIA acknowledges the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) decision to appeal the ruling of no fault or negligence in the case of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, issued by an independent tribunal appointed by Sport Resolutions on 19 August 2024.
“Under the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code, WADA has the final right to appeal all such decisions.
“Having reached an agreed set of facts following a thorough investigative process, the case was referred to a tribunal entirely independent of the ITIA to determine the level of fault and therefore sanction because of the unique set of circumstances, and lack of comparable precedent.
“The process was run according to world anti-doping code guidelines. However, the ITIA acknowledges and respects WADA’s right to appeal the independent tribunal’s decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”
The recomended period of suspension for a case such as Sinner’s is a one to two year suspension and that is why WADA have suggested they will be pushing for that level of a ban for the world No 1.
Yet Sinner’s legal team is likely to argue that as he has already been found to be ‘not liable’ for the substance that was found in his system, any ban would be excessive and if there is to be a suspension, it could be well below a punishemnt that could seriously derail Sinner’s career.
There will also be a discussion over whether Sinner can appeal his suspension and whether he can play during that period, with the likelihood being he will not be allowed to compete if he is suspended by CAS.
The ITIA have been accused of showing favouritisim to both Sinner and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek, who also failed a drig test after taking a product to help her sleep, which resulted in a one-month ban.
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Yet ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse inistsed all players need to comply to the same guidelines, with the inflated status of Sinner and Swiatak in tennis not impacting the outcome of their doping cases.
“It’s the same rules and the same processes for every player,” begins Moorhouse, speaking to Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.
“All cases are different and each case turns on individual facts. Cases can also be quite complex, so it isn’t right to look at two headlines and draw comparisons between two cases as the detail is always the key part.
“Let’s take Swiatek and Halep. The CAS tribunal found that her (Halep’s) supplement was contaminated. So just in relation to that finding, they said nine months (suspension).
“That was the tribunal deciding on the objective fault she had and the subjective fault she should have. So what should she have done in relation to the product that was found to be contaminated?
“In relation to Swiatek, the contaminated product was a medication. So it was not unreasonable for a player to assume that a regulated medication would contain what it says on the ingredients.
“Therefore, the level of fault she could accept was at the lowest level as there was very little more she could have done reasonably to mitigate the risk of that product being contaminated.
“The key point here is it’s rare to find two cases that are the same they will all turn on their particular facts.”
The ITIA are now interesting observers in the Sinner case as WADA and the CAS will decide what happens next in this story, with tennis waiting to discover what happens next for the dominant player in men’s tennis.
