Jannik Sinner has revealed he had to accept \u201cthe lesser evil\u201d of a three-month suspension in his first interview since his ban from ATP action began.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Sinner<\/a> is currently serving a three-month suspension after agreeing to a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) earlier this year.<\/p>\n WADA had announced an appeal into the severity of Sinner\u2019s doping sanction from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which was announced in August 2024.<\/p>\n The ITIA found him to have been of \u201cno fault\u201d after twice testing positive for the banned steroid clostebol in March 2024, and was handed no suspension after successfully arguing he had been contaminated by a team member.<\/p>\n WADA confirmed its appeal regarding the severity of the sanction in September 2024 and was set to take its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in April 2025.<\/p>\n Had CAS ruled in WADA\u2019s favour, Sinner could have faced a suspension of up to two years in length \u2013 though a settlement between the two parties was confirmed in February 2025.<\/p>\n The world No 1 is two months into his ban and is set to return at the Italian Open, which begins just days after his ban ends on May 4, 2025.<\/p>\n Speaking to Sky Sports Italia<\/em><\/a>, the 23-year-old maintained that his suspension still felt \u201cunfair\u201d and \u201cdidn\u2019t agree completely\u201d with the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, you have to choose the lesser evil and I believe that is what I have done,\u201d said Sinner.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if sometimes it seems a bit unfair, all that I\u2019m living, but then if I look at things from a different perspective it could have been worse. Even more unfairness. This is the way it is.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decision to take the three-month suspension was rather quick. We accepted it quite quickly, even though I didn\u2019t agree completely.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a bit of back and forth with my lawyer and the people around me. After we took this decision, it took me a while to find myself again.\u201d<\/p>\n Sinner has been under intense scrutiny since news of his two doping violations first emerged last August.<\/p>\n In one of the most emotional revelations to come from the interview, the three-time Grand Slam champion admitted to feeling \u201cfragile\u201d at points during the case.<\/p>\n \u2018Innocent\u2019 Jannik Sinner\u2019s suspension slammed by former ATP Tour star<\/a><\/p>\n Jannik Sinner used three-month ban to \u2018improve his game and physique\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n He added: \u201cI was very fragile after what happened. I would tell a lie if I said I was person without feelings or emotions.<\/p>\n \u201cIn life you learn, every year I learn more about myself, also about my value. It was not easy, very hard at times, but the people around me gave me the strength to understand what had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Reaction within tennis to Sinner\u2019s case has been divisive, with a particularly mixed reaction across active players on the ATP Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though he will likely receive a strong reception when he returns to action on home soil in Rome, there is no way of judging how the Italian\u2019s ATP colleagues will react to his comeback.<\/p>\n And, Sinner himself admits he is unsure about the welcome he will receive.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t answer this question as I don\u2019t know what could happen. I know how things went, I know I am innocent.<\/p>\n \u201cI am calm because in the end I know that what I want to do is to play tennis and be serene. That\u2019s the end of the story.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I am sure all will go well, even if at the beginning it will take a while to start over. These are questions I don\u2019t know how to answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0Exclusive: Jannik Sinner\u2019s rivals warned Italian is \u2018going to play well\u2019 on return from suspension<\/a><\/p>\n The post Jannik Sinner believes he chose \u2018the lesser evil\u2019 in first interview since doping ban<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jannik Sinner has revealed he had to accept \u201cthe lesser evil\u201d of a three-month suspension in his first interview since his ban from ATP action began. World No 1 Sinner is currently serving a three-month suspension after agreeing to a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) earlier this year. WADA had announced an appeal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jannik Sinner News<\/h2>\n