Tennis News: Iga Swiatek explains herself but doth protest too much

Tennis was a fun year in 2024. Fans watched as Jannik Sinner won his first two Grand Slam titles, and Carlos Alcaraz won the other two. On the WTA side, Aryna Sabalenka took over the year-end spot for the first time with a little help from Iga Swiatek missing some tournaments. Unfortunately, the year was marred by Sinner and Swiatek failing drug tests.

In Sinner's case, he received only a slap on the wrist - and not a hard slap at that - for testing positive for the banned substance Clostebol, an anabolic steroid that can help build muscle mass. He failed his tests in March at Indian Wells, and the only discipline he has faced so far is giving up the prize money he won at Indian Wells and the ranking points from there.

He still could face a suspension if the World Anti-Doping Agency wins its appeal of Sinner being found innocent of any intentional wrongdoing by the International Tennis Integrity Agency. Still, he was initially found innocent and gave a fairly succinct answer on what happened. He finished the year at No. 1 and helped Italy win the Davis Cup.

Iga Swiatek tries to explain what happened when she failed a drug test in August

Swiatek, though, tested positive in August at the Cincinnati Open for the banned substance trimetazidine and was found to not have knowingly done anything wrong but was still suspended for a month. That included three tournaments, and the points lost for not playing were enough to allow Sabalenka to overtake her in the rankings.

By the time January begins, Swiatek will have served the remainder of her suspension and she will be able to play. Unlike Sinner, though, her explanation for what happened to cause her to fail a drug test seems a bit too wordy as if she is trying to explain something away that she was aware of. That is not to say she did do something intentionally wrong, of course, because she seemingly did not.

The issue is that tennis is going to begin to have a major image issue, especially after two top players have tested positive for banned substances. Sure, at least tennis does the testing and other sports do not, but some might simply think tennis is full of cheaters without doing any further research. If Sinner gets suspended after the WADA appeal, things could be quite bad.

This is why Swiatek's Instagram video explaining her failed test needed to be vetted a bit more. She comes across as too over-the-top instead of just giving the facts.

She said, "It turns out testing revealed historically lowest levels of trimetazidine, a substance I’ve never heard about before. I don’t think I even knew it existed. I have never encountered it, nor did people around me...The detected concentrations, which was extremely low, suggested – or rather made it obvious – that either the sample was contaminated, or a supplement or medication that I was taking was contaminated, which is why we focused on running tests on all nutritional supplements and medications I was taking."

Part of that is untrue. A player doing a drug test who doesn't show any trimetazidine would have the "historically low level" of zero because the substance wouldn't show at all. Swiatek's wording is both confusing and weird.

Also, we can assume Swiatek is being truthful about never hearing of the substance, but the part about her "not thinking she knew it existed" is, again, strange. She is likely innocent of any wrongdoing, of course, but her image might still take a hit based on the wording of her explanation.

More tennis news and analysis: