Jannik Sinner’s suspension shows WADA has no idea what they’re doing.
The tennis world has levied its share of reactions to World Number 1 Jannik Sinner’s oddly-convenient three-month suspension from men’s tennis.
The punishment came from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and will cause him to miss exactly zero Grand Slam tournaments, lose no ranking points and have no wins retroactively removed. So people are reasonably peeved. Nick Kyrgios called it a “sad day for tennis,” Tim Henman said it “it leaves a pretty sour taste,” and Daniil Medvedev sarcastically hoped all players would be given this chance to negotiate a better deal with WADA.
But let’s leave those reactions to their own devices and instead look at what WADA themselves said about Sinner’s case, so that we may discover just how hollow their communication has been without us becoming blinded by the smoke of public outcry. Their statements about Sinner’s “case” and their “decision” are so fraught with contradiction and absurdity that one is left to wonder if they understand their own prerogative. And even if they do, WADA has completely misunderstood their role in international sports, and have consigned men’s tennis to confused finger-pointing when it should be celebrating its emerging next generation. Allow me to help them understand the importance of clarity.
In their official statement, WADA claimed that Sinner was indeed “exposed” to clostebol, which is a banned substance, but did so unintentionally and “did not intend to cheat.” WADA also claims that the clostebol “did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit,” despite its historic status as one of the main drugs abused by East German athletes, one of the great cheating scandals in sports history. WADA did not explain what “exposed” actually meant, nor did they say how he could have been “exposed” to it without receiving any performance enhancing effect.
Per Sinner’s own statements, his trainer had accidentally used a clostebol healing spray on a cut at Indian Wells, which would potentially explain some of WADA’s contradictory rhetoric. But why didn’t they include that in their statement? WADA is not necessarily wrong about any of this, but their complete lack of explanation mixed with the utterly-and-ridiculously-perfect length of their “appropriate” suspension will do nothing but stir the pot that’s already full of everyone’s ire and indignation.
The calculations that went into Sinner’s suspension are maddeningly obvious: three months is the exact amount of time between now and the beginning of the French Open, the next major tournament in the tennis calendar. And because Sinner was docked no prize money or match wins despite playing under a banned substance, the precise length of his suspension will cost him exactly … nothing. And maybe that’s what it should have cost him, but WADA certainly owes the public a better explanation than that.
The other immediately confusing part of Sinner’s “punishment” was that it was not handed down from WADA, but rather mutually agreed to as a settlement between the player and the agency, something most tennis fans — and fans of international sports more broadly — probably did not even realize was allowed until Saturday.
That is because WADA is a regulatory body, not a legal court. And while players accused of doping are always given the right to appeal, it is hitherto unheard of for a high-profile player to have a hand in crafting their own punishment. And it appears as though Sinner’s camp had a fairly-active hand in that department, considering how convenient it wound up being for the Italian superstar.
A WADA spokesperson sent a politically-calculated but practically-meaningless statement to The Athletic, claiming that the settlement structure has been “used dozens of times for cases with exceptional circumstances,” but refused to explain why exactly three months was the chosen length of the suspension. This reeks of incompetence at best and corruption at worst.
And even if there is precedent, and even if Sinner was the victim of team negligence and bad luck, there is no room in the world of anti-doping for this kind of confusion. Because WADA’s job isn’t just about “fairness” or “precedent”; it’s about protecting the sanctity of competitiveness in sports. They would do well to take their responsibility a bit more seriously.
