With the start of the tennis season arriving, and with it the Australian Open, many tennis fans and players are fed up with the testing restrictions of tennis. Recently, this issue has been brought to light with the high-profile drug cases of Iga Świątek and Jannik Sinner, two of the best players in the world, on the men’s and women’s sides respectively.
Many high level sports make athletes take drug tests to ensure for fair play for everyone in the game. However, many athletes consider the drug testing process for tennis as particularly intense.
According to ITIA’s website, “All athletes can be tested at any time, in any place: in-competition at events, or out-of-competition, in training venues, tournament hotels, or even at an athlete’s home. Testing is intelligence-led and risk-based, however it will always be conducted with ‘no advanced notice.’”
Players can face a 4-year suspension if the ITIA believes they were taking a drug for use for improved performance, and a 2-year suspension if the player can prove that they used the substance unintentionally.
When Italian tennis player and current world #1 player Jannik Sinner was accused of testing positive for a banned substance by the International Tennis Integrity Association, the tennis world was shocked.
Sinner said that the banned substance, clostebol, entered into his body through the form of a spray his fitness coach, Umberto Ferrara, applied to a cut, and his physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, massaged into him, allowing the cut to be contaminated. It is important to know that the ingredient used in the spray was legal and available in Sinner’s native Italy, but not where he used it. On August 20th, the story broke, with the ITIA’s decision being reversed by the World Anti-Doping Association.
Some believed that Sinner should have gotten the full 2-year ban after proving he took the substance unintentionally, including the outspoken Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, saying that because he was ranked world #1, Sinner got away with no suspension, unlike many other players with lower rankings.
Additionally, many athletes’ applications can take months for their appeals to be processed, causing them to lose money and practice time, whereas Sinner’s case was processed within weeks. Canadian tennis player Dennis Shapovalov said in a tweet, “Different rules for different players,” after the news broke about Sinner’s allegations.
Jake Michaels of ESPN said that “Shapovalov later told the website Tennis Majors that his comment wasn’t directed at Sinner, but at an anti-doping process that has not given other players the same benefit of the doubt and quick attention that players saw the ITIA granting to Sinner.”
In the wake of Sinner’s case, many questions were raised about ITIA’s decision to suspend Sinner and other pros over such small amounts of banned substances, which was, after further analysis, not enough to actually have an impact on Sinner’s performance.
According to the New York Times, “Even if the administration had been intentional, the minute amounts likely to have been administered would not have had any relevant doping, or performance enhancing, effect upon the player,” said Professor David Cowan, a member of the ITIA tribunal for its final ruling on the case.”
Inside Tennis Magazine noted that WADA’s director general Oliver Niggli said in response, “The quantities found are so small that it’s possible to contaminate yourself for even doing the smallest things…If we want to simplify our lives, we could impose new thresholds and not encounter new cases…[But] are we ready to accept micro-dosing?”
The irony of suspending a player from playing over an amount of substances that doesn’t affect their ability to play better seems preposterous and unnecessary. Despite the definite issues of micro-dosing, the fact that Sinner was able to prove that he took the drug unintentionally and that the amount was small enough to not give him an advantage in playing should make his case and others easily dismissable.
Another high profile case was with Iga Świątek, a Polish tennis player. Świątek was found to have levels of the banned substance, trimetazidine. Świątek maintained that the substance was from her melatonin pills, which she purchased in Poland, where the ingredient was legal, but she took the pills in another country, where the ingredient was illegal.
Świątek accepted the 1-month suspension the ITIA gave her, missing three tournaments in the process. The shortness of the ban raised many eyebrows in the tennis community. Like Sinner, Świątek was ranked very highly at the time, at #2 in the world. Lower ranked players don’t have the benefit of the shorter suspensions and appeal times of these two higher ranked players.
As an example, Tara Moore, another tennis player, was suspended for 18 months for eating steak she was supposed to know was contaminated. This made her lose a quarter of a million dollars, and she spoke up about the injustices of the situation among all players.
As a possible connection to the cases, WADA is believed to be repealing Sinner’s case as part of a power struggle trying to demonstrate authority over the ITIA after an Olympics scandal earlier last year. Tennis players deserve more than to be caught between these two powerful groups’ internal issues.
Due to the high profile cases, many other tennis players have used this opportunity to make a point of taking a stand against the ITIA, WADA and the groups’ sometimes overzealous actions. Świątek admitted that the ITIA’s decision made her shed quite a few tears, and that she had never heard of trimetazidine before.
The professional tennis player’s job is hard enough, being mentally and physically taxed by playing the game and traveling the world for almost the entire year to play tournaments.
By adding in drug testing which can happen at any time and anywhere, tennis players are incredibly stressed. Because of the complex appeals process and long wait times, players can lose money and time through this complicated and lengthy process.
Players’ reputations are often permanently tarnished and shorten athletes’ careers and sponsorship opportunities. The ITIA and WADA should consider simplifying their processes, offering equal opportunities for all players, regardless of ranking, and consider not giving players suspensions for doses that don’t give advantages in the game.
