Tennis in the doping twilight: The Jannik Sinner case

The tennis season is coming to an end. On Sunday the titles will be awarded at the two ATP 500 tournaments in Basel and Vienna. This is followed by the actual final spurt with the last Masters 1000 tournament in Paris-Bercy, the ATP finals in Turin and the Davis Cup final tournament in Malaga, where the tennis scene will once again bow to Rafael Nadal.

With the departure of the 38-year-old Mallorcan, an era in men’s tennis comes to an end. Two years after Roger Federer, the second of the three players who have shaped the ATP tour over the past twenty years is also retiring. The end of Novak Djokovic’s career also seems to be foreseeable. The Serbian is 37 years old. He is looking back on one of his weakest seasons in recent years. He won Olympic gold in Paris and thus closed the last relevant gap that still existed in his palmarès. A week ago he competed at the Six Kings Slam, an exhibition in Riyadh, and said on the sidelines of the event that his focus this season was on the Olympics.

Djokovic’s plan worked, but he also paid the price for it. It is unclear whether the 24-time Grand Slam winner will contest the ATP Finals in Turin (November 10th to 17th). If he even qualifies for this. In the so-called race for the eight starting places, Djokovic is currently in sixth place. Casper Ruud and Andrei Rublew harass him. But there is also a threat from other competitors.

In Turin a lot, if not everything, will revolve around Jannik Sinner anyway. The South Tyrolean leads the rankings and is the dominator of the season. The 23-year-old Italian won 65 of his 71 games in 2024. He won 7 tournaments, including the Grand Slam tournaments in Melbourne and the US Open.

The shadow of doping

Sinner seems destined to close the gap that opened up behind Federer, Nadal and Djokovic and has not been filled for a long time. Until recently, he was considered the perfect ambassador for tennis. He is friendly, sociable and professional, and above all he plays tennis almost indecently well. If only there wasn’t the shadow of doping.

In the summer it became public knowledge that Sinner had tested positive twice for the steroid Clostebol at the Indian Wells tournament in the spring and later during a training test. However, he was not banned. Apparently those around him were able to provide the anti-doping authorities with relatively conclusive evidence that the banned substance entered the tennis player’s bloodstream via the physiotherapist’s hands. An independent court therefore acquitted Sinner. But the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) did not accept the findings and instead appealed to the International Sports Court in Lausanne (TAS) at the end of September. Its arbitration award is still pending.

Since then, the tennis tour has only been running with reservations. Every tournament Sinner has taken part in since the positive tests in the spring, every title he has won, is only conditionally included in the ranking. If the Court of Arbitration for Sports follows Wada’s argument and bans Sinner, it would be a huge damage to the image of tennis. The world rankings would have to be rewritten. 8,000 of his current 11,920 points would be deleted, and on Monday the 500 points from his tournament victory a year ago in Vienna would be removed from the ranking – with 3,420 points remaining, he would fall from first place out of the top ten. He would also lose most of the $12 million in prize money he won.

The damage to the image of the entire tennis scene would be all the greater since it doesn’t exactly have a reputation for taking decisive action against doping offenders. Herwig Straka is a member of the ATP management board and one of the leading event and athlete advisors in Austria. The 58-year-old from Graz is known for unusual ideas. He once held a tennis tournament on the roof of a shopping center. He now leads the ATP 500 tournament in the Vienna Stadthalle, which is in direct competition with the Basel Swiss Indoors.

Straka is directly affected by the allegations surrounding Sinner. The South Tyrolean won his tournament a year ago and would probably have defended his title this fall without the doping rumors. Straka is therefore correspondingly cautious when it comes to assessing the case. In principle, there are two positive tests and therefore also a case of doping, he says. That’s why he understands that the South Tyrolean’s competitors in particular would now vehemently insist on Sinner being sanctioned. “But I’m also a lawyer. There is no right in wrong. What I mean by this is that the fact that a driver drove too fast or parked incorrectly and was fined as a result does not automatically mean that everyone who is accused of doing so will also be punished in the same way. Apparently Sinner’s team was able to conclusively prove that the substance entered his body without the player’s intention or knowledge. “Therefore, in my opinion, the judgment can only be overturned if relevant errors in the procedure can be proven.”

Straka would have been happy to present the world number one to the Viennese audience in the Stadthalle. But not only this, but also Sinner’s last year’s final opponent Daniil Medvedev canceled his participation at short notice. Instead, both took part in the so-called Six Kings Slams, which were held in Riyadh last week and attracted players with high entry fees and prize money. Sinner signaled to him early on that he couldn’t play through the season without a break, says Straka. The Italian had originally planned to take a break in the week before the Vienna tournament. But then the almost indecent offer came from Saudi Arabia, and the Austrians looked down the drain.

Thiem’s ​​farewell at the age of 31

The Swiss Indoors in Basel are in a comparable situation. Straka’s industry colleague Roger Brennwald did not try for Sinner, but rather for his big competitor Carlos Alcaraz, who won the other two major tournaments (Roland-Garros, Wimbledon) – also in vain. There is a silent agreement between the two organizers not to poach each other’s figureheads. For a long time the scene was clearly regulated: Basel advertised with its former ball boy Roger Federer, in Vienna Dominic Thiem was the designated figurehead.

It is difficult to compare the two: Federer won twenty, Thiem just one major title. But his victory at the US Open 2020 was not the start of the Lower Austrian’s career, but almost the end. Shortly afterwards he had to have surgery on his wrist. He never really recovered from this injury, which was a delicate one for a tennis player. Last Tuesday evening he played his last match in the Wiener Stadthalle and was given an atmospheric farewell. Exhausted by years of work on the pitch, he lacked the motivation to fight back.

At this very moment, when the stage would be free for new stars and fresh faces, the tennis circuit is threatened by a doping scandal. Herwig Straka is not a dreamer. He knows the business not only as an organizer, but also as an athlete representative. Among other things, he looked after the careers of tennis players Thiem and Thomas Muster, ice hockey player Thomas Vanek and downhill skier Armin Assinger. He says: “I know that you should hold back from making statements like that. But I would put my hand in the fire to ensure that Jannik Sinner did not knowingly dope.” If only he doesn’t get burned with that statement.

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