Top-ranked tennis player Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban in a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency over his two positive doping tests, the organization said Saturday.<\/p>\n
WADA, which was seeking to ban Sinner from the sport for at least one year, had challenged a decision last year by the International Tennis Integrity Agency not to suspend Sinner for what the ITIA judged was accidental contamination by a banned anabolic steroid last March.<\/p>\n
Sinner\u2019s explanation \u2014 that trace amounts of Clostebol in his doping sample was due to a massage from a trainer who used the substance after cutting his own finger \u2014 had been accepted, The Associated Press reported.
\nThe 23-year-old Italian, who won the Australian Open in January, will be eligible to compete in the next Grand Slam. The French Open begins May 25.
\n“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,\u201d Sinner said in a statement. \u201cI have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realize WADA\u2019s strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted WADA\u2019s offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a 3-month sanction.\u201d
\nWADA had originally appealed the ITIA’s ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. It has formally withdrawn the appeal.
\n\u201cWADA accepts the athlete\u2019s explanation for the cause of the violation as outlined in the first instance decision. WADA accepts that Mr. Sinner did not intend to cheat, and that his exposure to Clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit and took place without his knowledge as the result of negligence of members of his entourage,\u201d it said in Saturday’s announcement.
\n\u201cHowever,\u201d the WADA statement continued, \u201cunder the code and by virtue of CAS precedent, an athlete bears responsibility for the entourage\u2019s negligence. Based on the unique set of facts of this case, a three-month suspension is deemed to be an appropriate outcome. As previously stated, WADA did not seek a disqualification of any results, save that which was previously imposed by the tribunal of first instance.\u201d
\nWADA added that the International Tennis Federation and ITIA, \u201cboth co-respondents to WADA\u2019s CAS appeal, neither of which appealed the first-instance decision, both accepted the case resolution agreement.\u202f\u201d
\nThe suspension is from Feb. 9 to May 4.
\nSinner could return at his home tournament, the Italian Open in Rome, which starts May 7.
\nSinner\u2019s London-based lawyer, Jamie Singer commented: \u201cI am delighted that Jannik can finally put this harrowing experience behind him. WADA has confirmed the facts determined by the Independent Tribunal. It is clear that Jannik had no intent, no knowledge, and gained no competitive advantage. Regrettably, errors made by members of his team led to this situation.\u201d
\nOn Friday, Sinner posted a video on Instagram of himself training in Doha at the Qatar Open, which starts next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top-ranked tennis player Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban in a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency over his two positive doping tests, the organization said Saturday. WADA, which was seeking to ban Sinner from the sport for at least one year, had challenged a decision last year by the International Tennis Integrity Agency …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43032,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43030\/revisions\/43032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}