Former WTA World No. 1 Iga Swiatek's hopes of avoiding a longer ban may have improved after the World Anti-Doping Agency's director admitted there is a problem with contamination instead of deliberate doping cheats.
Swiatek and Jannik Sinner, who have been ranked No. 1 in the ATP and WTA rankings in 2024, both tested positive for banned substances in the same season, which understandably worries fans who want to be sure the sport is clean.
Many players were enraged by both cases. A former world No. 1 stunningly called for players like Sinner and Swiatek to receive lifetime bans, while Eugenie Bouchard supported Nick Kyrgios' criticisms of the cases.
However, the details in each case are also important. Sinner's explanation that the banned substance clostebol entered his system without him knowing after massages from his physiotherapist was accepted by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.
The World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA) also believed Sinner's explanation but decided to appeal the case anyway. A ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling will not be made until sometime after February 11th.
Swiatek accepted a one-month ban after testing positive for trimetazidine. The Pole was provisionally suspended on September 12th, exactly a month after submitting an out-of-competition sample a few days before competing at the Cincinnati Open.
This year's French Open champion successfully appealed the provisional suspension after testing confirmed her explanation that a non-prescription medicine had been contaminated with trimetazidine.
That meant Swiatek's fault was extremely low. The company that sold the contaminated product acknowledged it and apologized for what happened during a statement about Swiatek's situation.
Swiatek's case especially indicates an issue with contamination rather than players deliberately doping, and the WADA president, Olivier Niggli, discussed that during an interview with L'Equipe.
Niggli said laboratories are better at detecting tiny amounts of prohibited substances, but that means players can become contaminated for doing trivial things that may not seem like their fault.
"Today there is a problem of contamination. There are no more (doping cheats) than before, but laboratories are more efficient in detecting infinitesimal quantities of doping substances. We will have to open a working table to understand how to manage this situation."
"The quantities found are so small that it is possible to become contaminated by doing even trivial things. I understand the public, who thinks we are naive and that we believe everything. But the reality is different. There is a problem."
"If we wanted to simplify our lives, we could impose new thresholds and not find all these cases. But the real question is: Are we ready to accept microdosing? Where do we stop?"
"With thresholds, we wouldn’t have seen all these cases. What we need to understand is whether we are ready to accept microdosing and where it is right to stop. A working table will be created precisely for this type of reflection."
It is possible that the World Anti-Doping Agency might be more lenient to Swiatek, in particular, than to Sinner and not appeal her case based on these comments since her positive test was caused by a contaminated product.
By contrast, Sinner did not know about a spray his physiotherapist used that contained clostebol, but the product was not contaminated. Sinner's team members were not careful when checking the spray for prohibited substances.