Jannik Sinner will never be able to erase the stigma of his positive doping tests and his ban from the sport, according to respected tennis broadcaster Marcus Buckland.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Sinner<\/a> \u2018reached a deal\u2019 with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to accept an immediate three-month suspension from tennis after he failed two doping tests for the anabolic steroid clostebol last year.<\/p>\n The Australian Open champion is suspended from February 9 until May 4 and will be back in time to play at the second Grand Slam of the year at the French Open.<\/p>\n His ban will conclude just before the Italian Open tournament in his homeland, with the timing of the ban one of many talking points emerging from the biggest talking point in tennis over the last year.<\/p>\n While Buckland is convinced Sinner is not guilty of deliberately doping, he suggests the 23-year-old will always be associated with a doping story that started with his positive tests in March of last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe worst thing from Sinner\u2019s point of view is how this looks and the timing of the suspension,\u201d Buckland told Tennis365.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people will confirm he was not trying to cheat, but the biggest problem for him is the outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cThis convenience issue is a big problem. The fact that he has been banned for three months, in between Slams and he can come back for Rome in his home country, I don\u2019t think that has done him any favours at all.<\/p>\n \u201cThe saddest thing for him is that this will now be associated with him for the rest of his career, whatever he achieves on the court.<\/p>\n \u201cThis story is coming to an end now, but tennis has become so tribal and this issue will not leave Sinner.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see on social media and that Novak Djokovic fans are so passionate defending their man and that all hate Rafael Nadal.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we are seeing people who are massively with Sinner or totally against him. It\u2019s like football tribalism and in some ways that\u2019s good for the sport and we want people to be talking about tennis, but it can lead to an antagonism in the sport that I\u2019m a little uncomfortable with.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course you can have your favourites, but you can respect the achievements of other players as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckland also suggested tennis authorities need to rebuild some trust in a doping system that has come under fire due to what have been perceived to be inconsistencies with players who post positive doping tests.<\/p>\n Sinner successfully convinced investigators in his case that the clostebol got into his system after a member of his team used cream to treat a cut and then transferred the substance to the Italian during a massage.<\/p>\n By contrast, his fellow Italian player\u00a0Stefano Battaglino is currently serving a four-year ban after he tested positive for clostebol and also claimed it got into his system during a massage.<\/p>\n Jannik Sinner defended by Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach after attending major fashion event<\/a><\/p>\n Jannik Sinner\u2019s drug ban is wrong according to Andy Murray\u2019s former coach<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThere has got to be more transparency around this whole area,\u201d added Buckland.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had the case of Stefano Battaglino, an Italian tennis player who tested positive for clostebol after arguing it got into his system via a massage and yet he ended up with a four-year ban.<\/p>\n \u201cBattaglino is a lot lower in the rankings, he couldn\u2019t afford to hire lawyers, couldn\u2019t track down the physio who did something similar to the Sinner team and now he is out of tennis.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course the world No 1 is always going to be able to deal with an issue like this than someone well down the rankings, but we just need more transparency of the process and more consistency of the suspensions.<\/p>\n \u201cI always feel a bit uncomfortable because at the end of any analysis of this story, the biggest thing is none of us know exactly what happened,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Sinner had been hoping to train at the Monte Carlo Country club as he counts down to his return to tennis in May, but that option has been cut off after the venue that hosts the ATP Masters 1000 clay court event each April confirmed they are subject to WADA rules and would not be able to accomodate Sinner.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Jannik Sinner suffers major setback as training plans during ban are dented<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Jannik Sinner\u2019s big problem revealed after \u2018convenient\u2019 drug suspension<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jannik Sinner will never be able to erase the stigma of his positive doping tests and his ban from the sport, according to respected tennis broadcaster Marcus Buckland. World No 1 Sinner \u2018reached a deal\u2019 with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to accept an immediate three-month suspension from tennis after he failed two doping tests […]<\/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-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","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=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n