Novak Djokovic revealed before debuting at the Qatar Open that the short sanction, only three months, Jannick Sinner after doping positive, has meant a schism among the players. The Serbian said that most tennis players have lost faith in the anti -doping authorities and there is a general feeling that “favoritism” is being shown towards the greatest stars of this sport.
The winner of 24 Grand Slams asked the World Anti -Doping Agency and the International Tennis Integrity Agency to review their processes to address doping cases “because the system and structure obviously do not work.” “At this time there is a lack of general confidence on the part of the tennis players, both male and female, towards the AMA and the Itia and the whole process,” he said in Qatar.
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Sinner, the number 1 in the world, reached an agreement with the AMA on Saturday to accept a prohibition that will allow him to play in time for the France Open in May without having to miss a single Grand Slam tournament. This occurred after the International Tennis Integrity Agency decided not to suspend Sinner, so it considered accidental contamination with an anabolic steroid forbidden last March. The brief suspension for Sinner occurred after the five -time Grand Slam champion, IgA Swiatek, accepted a suspension of one month in November after positive for a prohibited substance that, according to her, was accidentally consumed due to a medication of contaminated free sale.
Both prohibitions are much shorter than those normally received by other tennis players and other athletes in similar cases. “It’s not a good image for our sport, that’s safe,” said Djokovic. “There are a majority of the players with which I have spoken in the locker room, not only in recent days, but also in recent months, which are not happy with the way this process has been handled (for SINNER). “Most players do not feel fair and feel there is favoritism. It seems that you can almost affect the result if you are a first level player, if you have access to the best lawyers and all that, ”he explained.
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The handling of the case of Sinner had already raised doubts about the double standard, and when the suspension was announced it was widely criticized by other players. The positive evidence did not reveal publicly until August because Sinner successfully appealed against the provisional suspension of playing. Then he won the United States Open in September and the Australian Open in January.
Djokovic put the focus on the comparative grievance that these cases have meant with respect to others in which he left more severe. To do this, he pointed out the case of former female number Simona Halep, whom the ITIA imposed a four -year suspension in 2022 after a positive test before he was later reduced to nine months, and the British player Tara Moore, who It was suspended in May 2022 while an investigation lasted 18 months before an independent court determined that its positive evidence for a prohibited substance was caused by contaminated meat. “Right now is a conducive moment for us to really address the system, because the system and structure obviously do not work, it is obvious,” said Djokovic. “So I hope that in the … near future the guiding organs of our tours and the tennis ecosystem meet and try to find a more effective way to address these processes.”
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