Novak Djokovic has revealed most players he has spoken to about Jannik Sinner\u2019s doping ban are \u201cnot satisfied\u201d and \u201cbelieve there was favouritism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Serbian legend branded the tennis anti-doping system \u201cinconsistent\u201d and \u201cvery unfair\u201d as he called for change.<\/p>\n
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) revealed on Saturday that Sinner<\/a>\u00a0had been suspended from tennis for three months for failing two doping tests in March 2024.<\/p>\n The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced in August that Sinner would not face a ban as he carried \u201cno fault or negligence\u201d after testing positive for the anabolic steroid clostebol during and after last year\u2019s Indian Wells Masters.<\/p>\n An independent tribunal accepted Sinner\u2019s explanation that the substance had entered his body when receiving a massage from his former physio, Giacomo Naldi, who had used a spray containing the steroid to treat a cut on his finger.<\/p>\n However, WADA appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the verdict in September as they sought to impose a ban of between one and two years on the world No 1.<\/p>\n The appeal was set to be heard at CAS in April, but WADA confirmed it had reached an agreement with Sinner\u2019s legal team for the Italian to serve a suspension from February 9 to May 4.<\/p>\n Alexander Zverev makes his feelings clear on Jannik Sinner\u2019s \u2018strange\u2019 doping ban<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Exclusive: ITIA chief insists Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek did not get different treatment after failed drug tests<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The three-time major was forced to withdraw from this week\u2019s Qatar Open ATP 500 event, and he will also miss Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old will not, however, miss any Grand Slams, and he will be able to compete at the Italian Open, which begins three days after his ban expires.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), a players\u2019 union founded by\u00a0Djokovic<\/a>, responded to Sinner\u2019s ban with a strongly-worded message and asserted\u00a0that there is \u201cunacceptable bias\u201d in the sport.<\/p>\n Speaking in his pre-tournament press conference at the Qatar Open, Djokovic spoke for the first time since Sinner\u2019s case was resolved.<\/p>\n \u201cI spoke with several players in the locker room, not only in the last few days but also in the previous months,\u201d the world No 7 divulged. \u201cMost of them are not satisfied with how the whole process has gone, and they don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of them believe there was favouritism. It almost seems like you can influence the result if you are a top player, and if you have access to top lawyers and so on.<\/p>\n \u201cSinner and [Iga] Swiatek are innocent, it has been proven.\u00a0Sinner will have a three-month suspension due to some mistakes and negligence of some members of his team, who are working on the tour. This is also something that I personally and many other players find strange.\u201d<\/p>\n The 37-year-old continued: \u201cWe have seen the cases of Simona Halep and Tara Moore, and other players perhaps less known, who have had difficulties for years to resolve their cases, or who have been suspended for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is really time to do something and address the system, because it is clear that the structure does not work like this.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yes, it is inconsistent and it seems very unfair to me, and that is all I have to say about it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will see what happens in the near future, if the whole case will attract more attention and can shed light on other cases of lower-level players. And we have to keep in mind that Sinner and Swiatek, at the time, were number 1 in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Novak Djokovic returns from injury with 48-minute doubles win alongside retiring ATP star<\/a> The post Novak Djokovic breaks silence on Jannik Sinner doping ban with\u00a0\u2018very unfair\u2019 statement<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic has revealed most players he has spoken to about Jannik Sinner\u2019s doping ban are \u201cnot satisfied\u201d and \u201cbelieve there was favouritism.\u201d The Serbian legend branded the tennis anti-doping system \u201cinconsistent\u201d and \u201cvery unfair\u201d as he called for change. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) revealed on Saturday that Sinner\u00a0had been suspended from tennis for […]<\/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-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","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=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jannik Sinner News<\/h2>\n
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