Serena Williams has claimed that \u201cmen\u2019s tennis needs\u201d Jannik Sinner despite appearing to question the severity of his recent doping sanction.<\/p>\n
ATP world No 1 Sinner<\/a> is currently serving a three-month ban from tennis after settling his longstanding doping case with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) back in February 2025.<\/p>\n The Italian twice tested positive for the banned steroid clostebol in March 2024 and was found to have been of \u201cno fault or negligence\u201d by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) in August 2024.<\/p>\n The ITIA accepted Sinner\u2019s claim that he had accidentally been contaminated by a team member, and did not hand the 23-year-old a suspension as a result.<\/p>\n However, WADA appealed against the leniency of Sinner\u2019s sanction and were set to take their case to the Court of Arbitration of Sport before the respective parties settled, resulting in a three-month ban for the three-time Grand Slam winner.<\/p>\n Sinner is the reigning US Open and Australian Open champion, and is guaranteed to still be world No 1 when he returns to court once his ban ends on May 4, 2025.<\/p>\n Williams<\/a> and Sinner met at the Miami Open back in 2024, a tournament he would go on to win.<\/p>\n Speaking in an interview with Time<\/em><\/a>, the tennis icon hailed the Italian and described him as \u201cgreat\u201d for the sport.<\/p>\n However, she also claimed that she would have been punished more significantly had she committed the same infraction.<\/p>\n \u201cFantastic personality,\u201d says Williams. \u201cI love the guy, I love this game. He\u2019s great for the sport.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been put down so much, I don\u2019t want to bring anyone down.<\/p>\n \u201cMen\u2019s tennis needs him, [but] if I did that [fail a drugs test], I would have gotten 20 years. Let\u2019s be honest. I would have gotten Grand Slams taken away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n The perceived favourable treatment of Sinner has attracted controversy ever since news of his violation emerged in August 2024.<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz makes shock confession about wanting to \u2018stop for several months\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s \u2018crazy\u2019 decisions questioned by former world No 1 as coaching appointment looms<\/a><\/p>\n Several have contrasted how the 23-year-old was treated compared to the likes of Simona Halep and Maria Sharapova, a leading contemporary of Williams \u2013 and a fellow leading star of their generation.<\/p>\n Sharapova was handed a two-year suspension after testing positive for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Open, though her ban was later decreased to 15 months on appeal.<\/p>\n Much like Sinner, governing bodies ruled that Sharapova\u2019s offence was unintentional, with the Russian have claimed at the time that she had not realised the substance had been banned.<\/p>\n Reflecting on her former rival\u2019s case, Williams revealed that she felt some sympathy for Sharapova, considering the significant difference in the respective sanctions.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cJust weirdly and oddly, I can\u2019t help but think about Maria all this time \u2013 I can\u2019t help but feel for her.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion and former world No 1, was speaking after being named in the Time100 for 2025.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0The 5 men with most weeks in first spell as world No 1: Sinner close to eclipsing Nadal & Djokovic<\/a><\/p>\n The post Serena Williams \u2018would have gotten Grand Slams taken away\u2019 as she questions severity of Jannik Sinner ban<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Serena Williams has claimed that \u201cmen\u2019s tennis needs\u201d Jannik Sinner despite appearing to question the severity of his recent doping sanction. ATP world No 1 Sinner is currently serving a three-month ban from tennis after settling his longstanding doping case with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) back in February 2025. The Italian twice tested positive […]<\/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-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","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=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n