Jannik Sinner \u201cknows he\u2019s done absolutely nothing wrong\u201d and remains \u201cvery comfortable in himself\u201d following his positive doping tests in 2024, but he did need some convincing from his legal representative to accept the World Anti-Doping Agency\u2019s (WADA) offer of an immediate ban.<\/p>\n
That is according to his lawyer Jamie Singer, who has given more insight into talks with WADA that led to the case being settled ahead of their tribunal hearing.<\/p>\n
The world No 1 twice tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid clostebol in March last year and he was provisionally suspended before his lawyers successfully argued his case and he was allowed to continue playing.<\/p>\n
In August the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) cleared Sinner of any wrongdoing as they accepted his explanation that the substance entered his system when his physiotherapist \u2013 who used a product containing clostebol \u2013 gave him a message.<\/p>\n
But WADA then appealed the decision as they felt despite the Italian bearing \u201cno fault or negligence\u201d he should still have been banned and they demanded a suspension of between one and two years.<\/p>\n
The case was set be heard by the Court of Arbitration in Sport for April, but the parties reached an agreement on 14 February and details were made public the following day.<\/p>\n
A statement read: \u201cThe World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that it has entered into a case resolution agreement in the case of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, with the player accepting a three-month period of ineligibility for an anti-doping rule violation that led to him testing positive for clostebol, a prohibited substance, in March 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many believe it was a good deal for Sinner, but the three-time Grand Slam winner wasn\u2019t initially too keen on settling with WADA.<\/p>\n
In an extensive interview with BBC Sport, Singer said it was \u201cquite tricky\u201d to persuade him to take the offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was saying \u2018well, look, maybe we should settle for three months\u2019, he was saying \u2018well, why would we do that if the first independent tribunal found it was no ban at all, why would I accept three months now?’\u201d Singer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy advice was \u2018one never knows what\u2019s going to happen at a hearing, we know that WADA are pushing for a year, if we don\u2019t accept their offer then they will go to court looking for a year and who knows what those three judges could do\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the possibility of three months, in my view, was a good possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinner won\u2019t miss any Grand Slams as he will be able to return to action on 4 May, just ahead of the Italian Open with the French Open starting later in the month.<\/p>\n
The timing certainly worked well for the 23-year-old, but Singer insisted they had no input on the date of the ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t get away from the fact that you can\u2019t choose when these things happen,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the fact that WADA approached us and in the next three months there are no Grand Slams, that seemed to me to make their offer more compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several current and former players have lashed out at the agreement with the likes of Nick Kyrgios, Stan Wawrinka and Marion Bartoli all criticising the decision.<\/p>\n
But Sinner remains unperturbed, according to Singer.<\/p>\n
\u201cJannik is a very resilient young man, and in his own mind he knows he\u2019s done absolutely nothing wrong and the process has been absolutely by the book. So I think he\u2019s very comfortable in himself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe keeps off social media where there are an awful lot of people with a platform, and who don\u2019t necessarily know the facts of the case, or investigate the facts of the case as much as they might do.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while some were surprised that WADA offered to settle, the organisation has made it clear that they have reached 67 agreements since 2021.<\/p>\n
The extensive list of conditions that Jannik Sinner must follow during 3-month ban<\/a><\/p>\n Andy Roddick labels timeline of Jannik Sinner doping ban \u2018borderline laughable\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n WADA\u2019s general counsel Ross Wenzel says they have 67 agreements while he again insisted Sinner did not intentionally dope.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a case that was a million miles away from doping,\u201d he told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scientific feedback that we received was that this could not be a case of intentional doping, including micro-dosing.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI\u2019m not sure that a sanction of 12 months in this case \u2013 if we\u2019d have forced the tribunal into that position \u2013 or a case of \u2018no fault\u2019 would have been a good outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cOne would have compromised an important principle under the code. The other one, in our view, would have been an unduly harsh sanction.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018Quite tricky\u2019 to convince Jannik Sinner to accept WADA\u2019s offer<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jannik Sinner \u201cknows he\u2019s done absolutely nothing wrong\u201d and remains \u201cvery comfortable in himself\u201d following his positive doping tests in 2024, but he did need some convincing from his legal representative to accept the World Anti-Doping Agency\u2019s (WADA) offer of an immediate ban. That is according to his lawyer Jamie Singer, who has given more […]<\/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-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","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=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}