SI:AM | Fellow Tennis Pros Take Issue With Lack of Punishment for Jannik Sinner

The world No. 1 tested positive for an anabolic steroid but was not suspended.

Sinner will enter the U.S. Open ranked No. 1 in the world. / Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I had no idea it was this easy to test positive for steroids.

In today’s SI:AM:

🎾 Tennis drama
✈️ The Jets’ O-line
🎙️ Why Brady will be good in the booth

Trouble for the world No. 1

With the U.S. Open less than a week away, world No. 1 Jannik Sinner finds himself embroiled in controversy.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced Tuesday that Sinner, 23, had tested positive for an anabolic steroid twice in March at the Indian Wells tournament. But Sinner will not be suspended, and that has some of his fellow tour pros ticked off.

Sinner tested positive for low levels of a metabolite of Clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid and the same substance that San Diego Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. tested positive for in August 2022, leading to an 80-game suspension. Sinner’s first test sample was collected on March 10, after his third-round victory at Indian Wells. The second sample was collected on March 18, after the conclusion of the tournament.

Sinner’s explanation for the positive test is that his physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, used a spray containing Clostebol to treat a cut on his finger and proceeded to give Sinner a massage, transferring the substance to the player. (Clostebol is an ingredient in a medication called Trofodermin that is available over the counter in Italy.) The ITIA consulted three scientific experts who concurred that Sinner’s explanation was plausible.

Because Sinner had a reasonable explanation for the positive test and appeared to have no knowledge of Naldi using a medication containing a banned substance, the ITIA did not suspend Sinner. He was, however, forced to forfeit the $325,000 in prize money and 400 tour ranking points he received for reaching the semifinals at the tournament.

Some of Sinner’s colleagues on the ATP Tour expressed frustration with the fact that he got off with minimal punishment.

“Different rules for different players,” Denis Shapovalov tweeted.

Nick Kyrgios called the situation “ridiculous” and said that Sinner should have been suspended for two years.

Ridiculous - whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance… you should be gone for 2 years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream…. Yeah nice 🙄 https://t.co/13qR0F9nH2

— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) August 20, 2024

British player Liam Broady, who peaked at No. 93 in the world rankings, took issue not with the fact that Sinner wasn’t suspended but that he was cleared so quickly.

Whether Sinner was doping or not. This is not right. Plenty of players go through the same thing and have to wait months or YEARS for their innocence to be declared. Not a good look https://t.co/kaqMJy36wi

— Liam Broady (@Liambroady) August 20, 2024

Sinner’s situation is a strange one. It’s natural to hear of an elite athlete twice testing positive for anabolic steroids and react like Kyrgios did. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports is something to be taken very seriously and when athletes are caught doping they should be punished accordingly. But by all accounts, Sinner did not knowingly take any performance-enhancing drugs. The full 33-page report from the ITIA lays out in great detail how Sinner’s fitness coach, Umberto Ferrara, purchased the medicated spray containing Clostebol and suggested to Naldi that he use it to treat a cut. The ITIA even went so far as to ask Ferrara to produce bank records showing that he purchased the spray at a pharmacy in Bologna, Italy. Furthermore, the levels of the Clostebol metabolite in Sinner’s system were so minute that they could not have had any performance-enhancing effects, the report found.

The timing of the announcement also means the story likely won’t die down any time soon. It came one day after Sinner won the Cincinnati Open and he will be the No. 1 seed when the U.S. Open begins on Monday in Queens, where he’s sure to face plenty of questions about the test and how quickly he was cleared.

Brady is just weeks away from his official debut as a TV analyst. / Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

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