{"id":79841,"date":"2025-02-15T14:55:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T19:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=79841"},"modified":"2025-02-15T15:04:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T20:04:01","slug":"i-dont-believe-in-a-clean-sport-anymore-slam-winner-reacts-to-jannik-sinners-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/15\/i-dont-believe-in-a-clean-sport-anymore-slam-winner-reacts-to-jannik-sinners-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I Don&#8217;t Believe In A Clean Sport Anymore&#8221; &#8211; Slam Winner Reacts To Jannik Sinner&#8217;s Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World No.1<span style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/02\/15\/jannik-sinner-three-month-ban-wada\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Jannik Sinner<\/a> accepted a three-month ban from tennis on Saturday, February 15. He reached a settlement with WADA over his two positive doping tests last year. Sinner&#8217;s suspension will end on May 4, 2025. Soon after the news broke<\/span>, some current and former tennis players reacted to the ban and were unhappy with the result.<\/p>\n<h2>Players React to Sinner&#8217;s Ban<\/h2>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2196107436\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 63.973064% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2196107436?et=ExkRZRPSQMR65LopRWogvg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=8gRuiEg5wflsFisYyTQIAN8SRbHQGCHUeucKT64N9FY=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>WADA initially wanted a 1-2 year suspension for Sinner but ended up settling for a three-month ban. This didn&#8217;t go well with some players including three-time Grand Slam winner, Stan Wawrinka who posted on his X:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I don\u2019t believe in a clean sport anymore \u2026<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Stanislas Wawrinka (@stanwawrinka) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stanwawrinka\/status\/1890727825281372559?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Two-time Slam champion and former world No.1, Yevgeny Kafelnikov also questioned the decision and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/KYevgeni\/status\/1890715879760871747\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted<\/a>: &#8220;I just don\u2019t get it!! If you are absolutely 100% sure of your innocence(as he was before with his lawyers), why are you accepting a 3-month ban?? makes no sense to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nick Kyrgios, as expected had a lot to say too. &#8220;So WADA come out and say it would be a 1-2 year ban. Obviously, Sinner&#8217;s team have done everything in their power to just go ahead and take a 3-month ban. no titles lost, no prize money lost. Guilty or not? Sad day for tennis. Fairness in tennis does not exist.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NickKyrgios\/status\/1890708045954470229\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a> the former Wimbledon finalist.<\/p>\n<p>One of Great Britain&#8217;s former greats, Tim Henman, felt the outcome of the Sinner case was<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SkySportsNews\/status\/1890729126140477617\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> &#8220;convenient&#8221;<\/a> for the player most of all.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jannik Sinner accepts immediate three-month tennis ban\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mTNm0VTHbtw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It looks like the majority of players disagree with the decision and have spoken their minds. And I can understand where they are coming from. Although WADA has accepted that Sinner did not intend to cheat and as much as Clostebol didn&#8217;t help him, the ban just looks bad. It\u2019s very clear it frees him up on time to play the tournaments he wants (Rome\/French Open), which makes it look like the organization is favouring him even more, which is what the main accusation has been this whole time.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, this is a legal settlement between two parties &#8211; so as much as this could favour Sinner (he puts this away now and doesn&#8217;t miss Slams) it must also favour WADA (meaning Sinner would have gotten less than 3 months from the CAS verdict.) It&#8217;s not like WADA decided to do the Italian star a favour out of the blue after intentionally appealing his case. Perhaps they suggested this because it was advantageous to them, and they knew he would agree since it would help him by ensuring he doesn&#8217;t miss any Slams. He might not have agreed to the arrangement if they had demanded more time.<\/p>\n<h2>Feliciano Lopez Defends Sinner<\/h2>\n<p>While most of the locker room disagrees with the decision, former world No.12 Feliciano Lopez has come to Sinner&#8217;s aid. The Spaniard replied to Wawrinka&#8217;s post. He <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/feliciano_lopez\/status\/1890742680323342586\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It\u2019s very clear he (Sinner) hasn\u2019t done anything to enhance his performance, that\u2019s proven. He\u2019s taking full responsibility for others&#8217; mistake and 3 months suspension consequently. Longer suspension would\u2019ve made sport cleaner? I don\u2019t think so.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This disagreement from Lopez doesn&#8217;t come as a surprise as he has retired from tennis and is now a tournament director, so he&#8217;s going to be on the other side of this to Wawrinka.<\/p>\n<p>Former American #1 Andy Roddick responded to the ban on his podcast, and sided with Sinner, believing that Sinner&#8217;s trainer is the one responsible for the positive test.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"JANNIK SINNER SUSPENDED | Quick Served\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TV3UCAorF8U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-<em>USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World No.1\u00a0Jannik Sinner accepted a three-month ban from tennis on Saturday, February 15. He reached a settlement with WADA over his two positive doping tests last year. Sinner&#8217;s suspension will end on May 4, 2025. Soon after the news broke, some current and former tennis players reacted to the ban and were unhappy with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5086,"featured_media":79561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,9],"tags":[1582,259,2259,449,5862,42819,209,42660,115,6457,4640,1738,11450],"class_list":["post-79841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-atp","category-news","tag-andy-roddick","tag-atp-tour","tag-atp-world-tour","tag-feliciano-lopez","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-jannik-sinner-doping","tag-nick-kyrgios","tag-ptpa","tag-stan-wawrinka","tag-tennis-news","tag-tim-henman","tag-wada","tag-yevgeny-kafelnikov"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79841"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79862,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79841\/revisions\/79862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}