Top-ranked tennis player Jannik Sinner tested positive twice for a banned anabolic steroid in March and was stripped of prize money and points earned at a tournament in Indian Wells, California. But he will not be suspended because an independent tribunal said it was not intentional.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency announced the case on Tuesday.
Sinner won the Cincinnati Open on Monday and will be among the favorites at the U.S. Open, which starts in New York next week. Sinner made his debut at No. 1 in the ATP rankings in June and is considered among the top stars of the new generation in men’s tennis, along with Carlos Alcaraz.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Sinner, an Italian who turned 23 on Friday, won the Australian Open in January for his first Grand Slam title. He reached the semifinals at the French Open in June and the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in July, before sitting out the Paris Olympics, saying he had tonsilitis.
During the Indian Wells hard-court event in March, Sinner tested positive for low levels of a metabolite of Clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid that can be used for ophthalmological and dermatological use. It’s the same drug for which San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. was suspended by MLB.
Sinner tested positive again eight days later in an out-of-competition sample.
In a statement provided to CBS News, Sinner’s team said that the tennis player had “less than a billionth of a gram” of the substance in his body during the test.
He was provisionally suspended because of those test results, but he successfully appealed and was allowed to keep competing on tour.
Sinner’s team said that the positive test happened because his fitness trainer purchased an over-the-counter Italian product that contained Clostebol so the tennis player’s physiotherapist could treat a small wound on Sinner’s finger. The physiotherapist did not know the product contained Clostebol, Sinner’s team said. The physiotherapist treated Sinner without gloves and that “coupled with various skin lesions on Jannik’s body caused the inadvertent contamination,” according to the statement.
The ITIA said it accepted Sinner’s explanation and determined the violation was not intentional.
An independent panel held a hearing on Aug. 15 and “determined a finding of No Fault or Negligence applied in the case, resulting in no period of ineligibility,” according to the ITIA.
Sinner still lost points from the Indian Wells tournament where the test took place, according to his statement.
“I will now put this challenging and deeply unfortunate period behind me,” Sinner said in the statement. “I will continue to do everything I can to ensure I continue to comply with the ITIA’s anti-doping program and I have a team around me that are meticulous in their own compliance.”