Jannik Sinner found support from some of his current or former colleagues on the ATP Tour after failing two doping tests.
There haven't been many topics that would divide the tennis community so much as Sinner's recent doping controversy. The Italian player avoided a doping ban despite testing positive for a banned substance twice.
This came shortly after an incredibly long process that Simona Halep had to go through, when she had to miss over a year of competition due to being initially banned for four years, before her ban was reduced to nine months, as she appealed it on the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Sinner's case was much different. He tested positive twice, he was provisionally suspended twice, a suspension which lasted only a few days, and he appealed both decisions, ultimately proving that he wasn't guilty of purposefully doping.
The banned substance, clostebol, which is an anabolic steroid, should have entered the Italian's body through the hands of his physio, who was giving him a massage, while treating his own injury with a cream, which included this substance.
Many of Sinner's fellow tennis players were outraged by how the situation was handled, not because they would want to see the World No. 1 player banned, but because they felt like the case was not handed properly, in light of the previous doping suspensions.
The other camp vehemently defended the 23-year-old, using the fact that only a billionth of a gram of the banned substance was in Sinner's body as the main argument. That was also the argument that former player John Millman used when defending the Italian player on social media.
"Before jumping to conclusions, Jannik Sinner had less than a billionth of a gram in his system... I believe him 100%... maybe we should change threshold cater for contamination."
The former Australian tennis player also saw the differences in handling Sinner's case, and that of Simona Halep. But instead of pointing out the unfairness to the Romanian player, he saw it as a step forward in handling the situation better than before.
"Furthermore, the ITIA handled this 1000x better than the butcher job with Simona [Halep]... Jannik is about as good a person that exists on tour. At least read the report before you pass judgement."
Millman also had his two cents to share, stating that not only in tennis, but in sports in general, athletes abuse the Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) to boost their performance, and this is not addressed properly according to him.
"Finally why the uproar for this when we allow athletes in all sports, including tennis, to abuse TUE’s?"
Some of the fans in his comments pointed out the double standards of handling similar situations, to which Millman also had a response. Once again, he saw the ITIA's step forward in handling the case better than before, rather than looking backward.
"I agree with that though. I am a huge Novak fan. I hate double standards and agree this case was handled how I think moving forward it should. Simona, Tara Moore etc were grossly mucked around by ITIA by not having their case sufficiently heard and dealt with in a timely manner."
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