Novak Djokovic said the shortness and timing of Jannik Sinner’s ban this year for an inadvertent doping violation was “odd” and the case would hang over the four-time Grand Slam champion like a cloud for the rest of his career.
Sinner served a three-month suspension following a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency in February after authorities accepted the anabolic agent clostebol had entered his system inadvertently via massages from his then-physiotherapist in March last year.
Djokovic said he did not believe Sinner had acted deliberately, but added the controversy over the perceived disparity between Sinner’s treatment and that of lesser-known athletes would linger around the Italian, much like his own deportation from Australia in 2022 over his refusal to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
Photo: AFP
“That cloud will follow him just as the cloud of COVID will follow me, for the rest of his, or my career in this case,” Djokovic said in an interview with Piers Morgan.
“It’s just something that ... it was so major, and when that happens, over time it will fade, but I don’t think it will disappear. There’s always going to be a certain group of people that will always try to bring that forward,” he said.
Djokovic raised questions about the handling of Sinner’s case after the 24-year-old was allowed to return to action in May without missing a Grand Slam.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency has remained firm that all its cases are dealt with based on facts and evidence, and not a player’s name or ranking.
“There is the lack of transparency, the inconsistency, the convenience [of] the ban coming, between the slams, so he doesn’t miss the others — it’s just, it was very, very odd,” Djokovic added. “I really don’t like how the case was being handled, and you could hear so many other players, both male and female, who had some similar situations coming out in the media, and complaining that it was a preferable treatment.”
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS