Tennis has long been considered a “gentleman’s” sport, one associated with sportsmanship and class of the highest level. Like any sport, tennis requires years of training to become great, and a special talent to be one of the best. However, some players have been found guilty of using other means to conquer the tennis mountain and become the No. 1 player in the world. Top Tennis Athletes Jannik Sinner and Iga Świątek, both at the pinnacle of the sport, have faced allegations of doping, the consumption of illegal substances to enhance one’s performance in competition.
In the last two years, Sinner and Świątek have each been one of the best in the world on their respective tours. Sinner went 73–6 in 2024, amassing eight titles and ending the year ranked No. 1 in the world in the Association of Tennis Professionals’ rankings. The Italian has won three of the last five Grand Slams contested on the men’s tour, the most prestigious tournaments that happen four times a year, including this year’s Australian Open.
Świątek is currently ranked No. 2 in the world in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings, behind Aryna Sabalenka, but has been no lower than that since March 2022. Poland’s greatest tennis player of all time, Świątek has won three consecutive French Open titles and holds the longest consecutive win streak since 1997 with 37 wins.
But last summer, Świątek tested positive for trimetazidine, a medication used to treat heart-related diseases, and was banned for one month. WADA found that Świątek’s claim that the substance was found in a melatonin medication that was made and regulated in Poland and that she unintentionally ingested the banned substance. The Polish player did not miss the fall’s two most important tournaments, the U.S. Open and the Year-End Finals. However, Świątek missed two WTA 1000 events and one WTA 500 event, missing out on potentially 2,500 points. Świątek wrote in a post on Instagram that the suspension has significantly hampered her career since she realized she will likely not be able to regain the No. 1 ranking this year, thanks to “my positive test result case, missing two-highly ranked tournaments in October,” and needing to defend many ranking points in the first half of the year.
After winning his third Grand Slam at the Australian Open in January, the World Anti-Doping Agency announced that Sinner would need to be suspended after testing positive for Clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid that entered Sinner’s body after a massage therapist had put Clostebol on their hands before giving Sinner a massage and going over a cut on the player’s body, entering his bloodstream. When Sinner tested positive, there was one billionth of a gram of Clostebol in his system. Despite Sinner’s lack of responsibility for the infraction, and the microscopic amount of the substance in his system, WADA served him a three-month suspension.
A major talking point of their suspensions are that neither player was found to have doped intentionally. Nevertheless, fellow professionals have blasted Sinner. After it was announced that Sinner would serve a three-month ban and could come back in time for the Italian Open and the French Open, Grand Slam champion Stanislas Wawrinka posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “I don’t believe in a clean sport anymore.” Although some of tennis’ top players, including Jack Draper and Feli Lopez, have defended the Italian, his character and his results over the last year have been called into question.
Under the World Anti-Doping Code, “Athletes are responsible for any Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers found to be present in their bodily Specimens. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence, or knowing Use on the Athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping violation under Article 2.1”
This year is not the first time that tennis superstars have been banned for doping. In 2016, five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova was handed a two-year ban after testing positive for meldonium. The suspension was eventually reduced to 15 months, but Sharapova’s career never fully recovered. Although she went on to win another title, the former World No. 1 retired in 2020 without reentering the world’s top 20.
Simona Halep, a former World No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion, was banned for four years after testing positive for Roxadustat after the 2022 U.S. Open. Halep’s initial four-year ban was retroactively reduced to nine months after she was cleared of intentional wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Halep didn’t compete for over a year and a half, and her career stalled upon her return. After a disheartening lack of success upon her return, Halep retired two months ago.
Although none of the four banned players were found to have intentionally doped, their suspensions have placed a black cloud over the sport, and three of the four haven’t returned to their peaks since. Tennis has lost its illusion of being a “clean” sport, the pinnacle of sportsmanship and class. As long as players are being suspended for doping, even when their suspensions are incredibly short and over miniscule infractions, tennis’ brand will continue to suffer, and players’ careers will continue to be in jeopardy.
