Jannik Sinner News: Former ATP No. 1 believes Sinner should be banned for life

Tennis players testing positive for banned substances is nothing new and happens every year. What made 2024 different was the sport had two young, highly-ranked players test positive. Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner tested positive for two different substances, and each faced a different degree of punishment.

On the surface, though Swiatek was suspended for only a month, which caused her to miss several tournaments, her discipline was far worse than Sinner's, who basically got off free. Both were found by the International Tennis Integrity Agency to have not done anything knowingly wrong, but each was handed a different punishment. That's weird and tennis must have more of a streamlined approach to failed tests.

One former ATP No. 1, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, thinks the ITIA did not go nearly far enough. In fact, whether they meant to take a banned substance or not, the Russian believes Swiatek and Sinner should be banned for life. That seems overly harsh if someone accidentally tests positive, but then Kafelnikov might have a point because tennis officials simply have to choose whether to believe a player's story or not with little proof otherwise.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov calls for lifetime ban of Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek

Kafelnikov was not just singling out Sinner and Swiatek, though. He thinks any player who tests positive for a banned substance should be banned for life. This would make sense, in his view, as why make anyone an exception. The truth is there should be exceptions, however. If Sinner and Swiatek truly did ingest something they had no idea they were ingesting, they shouldn't be found guilty of doping or taking something that might improve their performance.

Plus, tennis would suffer greatly if a player was banned for life even for an accidental positive test. Imagine Swiatek or Sinner never playing again. That would be a stain on the sport.

Kafelnikov wrote on X/Twitter, "Sometimes (I) wonder..."why the hell up (I) was not using steroids thru all of my carrier, so (I) could play instead of 170 matches a year to maybe 300?" This is really shame what’s happening to tennis now."

He followed that with another tweet to clarify his standing on how long a player should be suspended, writing, "It should be LIFE ban for anybody who gets caught using ban substances! NO excuses and ZERO tolerance no matter who (you) are!"

A lifetime ban would make sense for a player who tests positive more than once, but it is too harsh for only one positive test. That is especially true if the player is found innocent after a review. The issue comes into play when Swiatek, for instance, gets a suspension after being found innocent while Sinner does not.

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