Iga Swiatek Claims 'No Reason' For WADA Appeal Like In Jannik Sinner's Case

Friday, 27 December 2024 at 13:00

byErik Virostko

Iga Swiatek will soon start her 2025 season, and with that came also her first press conference, during which she addressed her doping contamination case.

The Polish player witnessed a few months ago how challenging it might be for a tennis player to face plenty of questions about their doping case. Jannik Sinner experienced that after he tested positive, facing questions about it almost every week.

Now, the Polish player will likely have to go through the same process. Her case was made public during the off-season, which means that she wasn't really quizzed about it by the media members present at tournaments around the world.

It's also expected that with every new tournament, a new wave of questions will arrive, and Swiatek handled the first set of questions ahead of the 2025 United Cup.

Swiatek will be joining forces with Hubert Hurkacz, hoping to delight the Polish fans after coming close to winning the competition last year. This year, however, the questions about her case might make it a bit more challenging to focus on the task at hand.

Prior to the event, the WTA World No. 2 player was asked whether she was afraid that her case would be appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) the same way Sinner's case was appealed.

Since the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) handles the cases in tennis, WADA always has an option to appeal, which happens rarely, but it happened in Sinner's case. Swiatek, however, is not afraid.

"Well, I don't think there is any reason, because I didn't play three tournaments. I was suspended for a long time, and I lost No. 1 because of that. I also know how the procedure worked, and I gave every possible evidence and there is not much, honestly, to do more."

Read also

Jessica Pegula Withdraws From 2025 Brisbane International Because Of Injury

"So I don't know, there is no point to do an appeal in our opinion. I guess overall, like, this whole process was pretty abstract sometimes and hard to understand from a point of view where you don't think about the law and everything."

"But honestly, like, this is about the law and the wording and this kind of stuff. So I'm not expecting an appeal, but I have kind of no influence on what's going to happen. But I can say from the processes that I went through and how they treated me from the beginning, that it seemed fair for me."

Swiatek's case was resolved relatively quickly, compared to that of Simona Halep, for example, and the Polish player is aware that it was mostly because of how quickly she was able to find the source of the positive test.

"I managed to give the source pretty quickly. That's why the case closed pretty quickly. But still, I didn't play tournaments, and I kind of, I got a fine, small one, symbolic one, but it's over now."

"So I guess, in my opinion, it was a fair process, and I trust ITIA that any case they do, they're going to treat every player the same way and fairly."