Tennis star Jannik Sinner has denied suggestions that he enjoyed a preferential treatment from anti-doping authorities after he was handed a three-month ban for doping.
Sinner has been widely criticised that he was treated leniently after twice testing positive for traces of clostebol in March last year.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) exonerated Sinner in August, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) accepted that he did not gain any competitive advantage from the banned substance, and that he was not at fault for an accidental contamination.
The Italian was facing a potential two-year ban from tennis before he agreed in February to a three-month suspension with Wada, who had previously appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against his initial exoneration.
WADA revealed that Sinner did not intend to cheat, a statement that drew widespread condemnation from other tennis players.
However, Sinner has denied insinuations that he enjoyed a preferential statement from WADA.
He said: “I’ve been criticised for supposedly being treated differently (to other players who tested positive), but it’s not true.
“I’ve had to go to a lot of hearings and they’ve probably tested me more than others.
“I don’t want to respond to criticism, people are free to say what they want and judge people. What matters to me is that I know what I’ve been through, it was difficult and I wouldn’t wish for anyone to go through that as an innocent person.”
Sinner is expected to return from his three-month ban at the Italian Open in Rome on Sunday, he insisted that he was innocent.
He said: “When there’s contamination, as happened to me, or if you ingest something while eating without realising it, and the doctors say it doesn’t give you more strength or clarity, that’s a different matter. There’s a whole protocol.
“I really had a hard time accepting the three months because in my mind, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Sinner won eight titles in 2024, including the Australian and US Opens and the ATP Finals.
In 2019, he broke into the top 100, winning the Next Generation ATP Finals and the ATP Newcomer of the Year award.
In 2021, he became the youngest ATP 500 champion at the Washington Open, and the first player born in the 2000s to enter the top 10 in rankings.
