Jannik Sinner accepts three-month ban following positive drug tests
The Italian has reached a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
World number one Jannik Sinner has accepted an immediate three-month ban from tennis.
Sinner has reached a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over two positive drugs test last year.
The 23-year-old Italian, who last month won the Australian Open, is suspended from February 9 until May 4.
He will be eligible to play in the year’s next Grand Slam, the French Open, which starts on May 19 at Roland Garros.
In a statement on Saturday, WADA, which had appealed against the decision to clear Sinner to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), said it accepted Sinner’s explanation that he was inadvertently contaminated with the banned substance clostebol by his physio.
WADA accepts that Sinner “did not intend to cheat, and that his exposure to clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit and took place without his knowledge as the result of negligence of members of his entourage”.
The statement added: “However, under the code and by virtue of CAS precedent, an athlete bears responsibility for the entourage’s negligence.
“Based on the unique set of facts of this case, a three-month suspension is deemed to be an appropriate outcome.”
In September, Sinner said he was “very disappointed and also surprised” when WADA appealed against an independent tribunal’s ruling of “no fault or negligence” for his two positive tests.
At the time, WADA sought to impose a ban of between one and two years.
Sinner’s was the first of two high-profile cases in tennis in quick succession, with women’s world number two Iga Swiatek handed a one-month suspension in November after a positive test for the angina medication trimetazidine.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted it was caused by contamination of a medicine Swiatek was taking to help combat jet lag.
Swiatek was provisionally suspended from September 22 until October 4 but that was not made public, with the three tournaments she missed attributed to personal matters and a change of coach.
The Pole then served an additional eight days to December 4 to make up the month and was informed last month that WADA would not appeal against the sanction.
