Jannik Sinner ban sparks Dubai anti-doping debate among WTA players

DUBAI—Aryna Sabalenka has taken contamination fears to new levels after both Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek were ruled to have inadvertently tested positive for banned substances, the world No. 1 admitting she now refuses to leave drinks unattended.

“You start to be more careful,” explained the world No. 1 during her Media Day press conference at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. “Before, I wouldn’t care and leave my glass of water to go to the bathroom at a restaurant. Now, I’m not going to drink from the same glass of water.

“I don’t really believe they did something,” she added of Swiatek and Sinner, who will serve a three-month ban following a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), “but I believe you have to be over-protective of all the stuff that’s around you. You become too scared of the system. I don’t see how I can trust it.”

If you're clean or not, the process is completely broken. Jessica Pegula

Like Sabalenka, Coco Gauff is similarly on edge following the pair of high-profile anti-doping cases in 2024, Sinner twice testing positive for the clostebol while Swiatek tested positive for trimetazidine, both banned substances. Swiatek served a one-month ban that largely took place during the off-season while Sinner, who was initially given no ban before an appeal from WADA, will now be off court until May 4, in time to compete at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

“Me personally, I'm not on any supplements or vitamins,” said Gauff. “I only take Advil because I get scared to take medicine. But I definitely think the process needs to be a bit more up to date.

“I remember one time I was, like, sick, I didn't know what I could take. I got a response two or three days later. At that point, don't need it. But yeah, I definitely think the process needs to be more up to date when it comes to players knowing what we can and can't take.”

Where Gauff deemed the process by which the International Tennis Integrity Agency determines contamination to be “thorough,” Jessica Pegula was more critical of the system as a whole—in particular WADA, an agency from whom the United States opted to withhold funding earlier this year. A member of the WTA Players Council, Pegula finds Sinner’s saga, one that was ultimately determined by a settlement with WADA, symptomatic of a larger problem with how anti-doping cases are resolved.

“The process just seems to be completely like not a process,” Pegula said flatly. “It seems to just kind of be whatever decisions and factors they take into consideration, and they just kind of make up their own ruling. I don't really understand how that's fair for athletes, how it's fair for players when there's just so much inconsistency and you have no idea. We get these emails of it all explaining this is why this happened, this is why that happened…There's always just an explanation of all these extreme or weird circumstances and cases.

“If you're clean or not, the process is completely broken,” added the American, who claimed fellow players feel similarly distrustful of anti-doping procedures. “I think it needs to be seriously looked at and considered. I feel like they have so much power to ruin someone's career, as well. I think there needs to be something done about that because it just seems really unfair.”

Speaking as someone who navigated her own anti-doping case, Swiatek drew a sharp line to contrast her now-resolved situation with Sinner, noting hers was ruled an open-and-shut case of accidental contamination.

Sometimes I ask my team to order food for me just to be sure. I don’t feel safe anymore. Aryna Sabalenka on fearing accidental contamination of banned substances

“I trust that the process at the end went fair,” said the world No. 2, both for herself and Sinner. “We did all we needed and we followed the instructions, so there was no space and no point for WADA to appeal even, I would say.

“From the beginning I knew that this was a contamination. The whole period when I was suspended was just, for me, something pretty unreal and something I couldn't understand. But this is how it works.”

This is unlikely to assuage someone like Sabalenka, who has (only half-jokingly) taken the tact of a medieval monarch—stopping just short of employing a taste tester.

“Sometimes I ask my team to order food for me just to be sure,” she said, clearly fearing the fallout from a proverbial poisoning. “I don’t feel safe anymore.”