Jannik Sinner And Iga Swiatek Wimbledon Wins Spotlight Doping In Tennis

As Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek celebrated their Wimbledon titles at the Champions Dinner, a contentious conversation split the tennis community. How do you applaud reigning Wimbledon champs for their achievements while ignoring that both failed drug tests?

Sinner and Swiatek were cleared of knowingly ingestion prohibited substances, yet questions remained about anti-doping policies and whether tennis has a two-tiered justice system.

Despite a decade of scandal — from Maria Sharapova to Simona Halep — tennis continues to treat doping as a serious offense with minor consequences, and the inconsistent, sometimes clumsy approach to rendering judgment only fuels skepticism.

Doping In Tennis: A Pattern Note An Exception

The World Anti-Doping Agency oversees anti-doping rules and policies across all sports, including tennis. The International Tennis Integrity Agency , was formed in 2021 by the the ITF, WTA, ATP, Wimbledon, US Open, French Open and Australian Open.

The ITIA states that “first and foremost, we are here to help players, coaches, officials and support staff to understand the rules and avoid breaching them.”

Yet, two of the biggest names in tennis, players with enough money to pay someone to test anything they ingest, tested positive for prohibited substances.

In March, 2024, Sinner tested positive for clostebol, a steroid his team claims accidentally entered his system during massage, through contamination from a medicine used by his physio to treat a cut finger. Swiatek tested positive for trimetazidine and blamed contaminated over-the-counter melatonin. In November, 2024, Swiatek accepted a one-month ban.

The ITIA provides players, coaches and support staff with pamphlets and an app with rules and regulations and warns players about potential containments. In April, the ITIA cautioned “Players who live or compete in countries in South America and Central America, as well as China and Mexico, should be aware that steroids can sometimes be used to promote growth in cattle and other animals bred for meat in those regions.”

So the notion of a “gotcha” game aimed at star players is nonsensical. But there’s merit to the allegations that some players get the star treatment.

“Different rules for different players,” Denis Shapovalov tweeted after news of Sinner’s positive tests broke. Later, Shapovalov said his comments were aimed at tennis officals and not Sinner.

The ITIA lists players sanctioned on its website. The majority are anti-corruption (gambling or match fixing) cases, which is more pervasive in tennis than doping.

Big names grab headlines but there are plenty of people serving longer suspensions than Swiatek or Sinner. Ivan Mikhaylyuk, a Russian banned for refusing to provide a urine sample. His excuse? He suffers from Pyelonephritis and prostatitis, urinary tract infections that limit his ability to urinate more than once day. Mikhaylyuk is in the middle of serving a four-year suspension.

Laurenţiu Basarab, a Romanian tennis coach, is serving a lifetime ban for administering steroids to a minor, Elena Madalina Capraru, who was 16 at the time.

In April, two-time Grand Slam doubles champion Max Purcell accepted an 18-month suspension for “prohibited method” after unknowingly receiving an IV infusion of vitamins above the allowed limit of 100 milliliters in a 12-hour period.

“The player’s full co-operation and information sharing with the ITIA allowed for a 25% reduction in sanction,” according to the ITIA.

And there’s the rub. If unknowingly receiving too many vitamins garners an 18-month suspension, then why the short one and three-month bans for Swiatek and Sinner?

The seemingly uneven punishment and accompanying “no fault or negligence,” and “no significant fault or negligence,” disclaimers is why it’s hard to take tennis anti-doping seriously.

Former British No. 1 and tennis commentator Tim Henman told Sky Sports that Sinner’s light sentence left fans with a “pretty sour taste”.

“When you’re dealing with drugs in sport it very much has to be black and white, it’s binary, it’s positive or negative, you’re banned or you’re not banned” said Henman.

Serena Williams said had she tested positive twice she would have been banned for 20 years. “Let’s be honest. I would have gotten Grand Slams taken away from me.” Williams said in an interview with Time magazine.

High Profile Doping Controversies In Tennis

In March, 2016, Sharapova stunned tennis fans when she held a press conference to announce she tested positive for Meldonium, a substance added to the prohibited list in January 2016.

In September, 2015, the drug made WADA’s monitoring list, indicating to athletes that it would be banned in January.

Sharapova said she “took full responsibility” for the positive drug test. Yet, she appealed her suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which reduced her ban to 15 months.

Sharapova hailed the reduction as a victory, despite not having her prize money and points reinstated, and because the reduction included time already served. So, she celebrated an 18-month doping ban.

Later, Sharapova suggested the ITF was out to get her. Meanwhile, neither she nor her father could explain to the ITF tribunal why they couldn’t produce packaging for a drug she was taking for ten years. Or why she was taking a drug not approved for human use in the European Union or the US, where she’d lived since she was a child.

According to the ITF, Mildronate, a brand of Meldonium, is “promoted as having a positive effect on energy metabolism and stamina,” advantages that would help a player in a tight three-setter.

Sharapova returned to tennis in 2016, her reputation slightly tarnished but her celebrity still in tact.

There’s speculation that Major League Baseball’s Barry Bonds started doping because he watched juiced colleagues Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire acquire fame and funds as they shattered home-run hitting records.

Perhaps, Halep saw Sharapova retire in 2020 with praise and fanfare, facing few consequences for having admitted to taking a PED for her entire career, and thought, why not?

In October, 2022, Halep was banned for four years for taking roxadustat. She had her suspension reduced to nine months after appeal. But the process lasted nearly two years. Halep noted the protracted appeal process she endured compared to the swift behind the scenes treatment Sinner received.

When Sinner’s positive drug test first came to light, he was cleared by the ITIA and allowed to keep playing while they sorted it out. But WADA pushed back and asked for a two-year suspension. Sinner accepted a three-month drug ban.

Tennis Channel analyst Jason Goodall called out Swiatek for a “blatant lie.”

“We’ve had a couple of high-profile doping cases this season with Jannick Sinner and Iga Swiatek, and the one thing that I didn’t like was the lack of transparency in those two cases,” Goodall said. “We only learned about Sinner’s case before the start of the U.S. Open, though it occurred earlier in the season, in the spring. With Iga’s case, we were told she was taking some time to work with her coach on different aspects of her game. That wasn’t the case. That was just a blatant lie.”

Mixed Messaging Erodes Trust And Integrity In Tennis

The sport’s governing bodies’ lack of transparency and no-fault rulings provide cover and plausible deniability. When nobody is guilty, fans are left with the impression that everyone is innocent. What kind of message does this send to players contemplating the pros and cons of using PEDs?

MLB’s Hall of Fame voters sends a clear message to players: cheat and kiss your legacy goodbye. Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and Roger Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, are not in Cooperstown because of alleged steroid use.

Meanwhile, Sharapova is scheduled to be inducted in to the International Tennis Hall of Fame on August, 23, alongside the Bryan Brothers.

In 2017, doubles specialist Sara Errani admitted to an anti-doping violation and initially received a two-month suspension. She appealed to CAS, which denied her appeal and increased her suspension to ten months.

Errani claimed she was at home with her mother, who was being treated for cancer. CAS accepted that letrozole, the banned substance, was present in Errani’s mother’s cancer medication and may have found its way into the family’s tortellini. However, CAS claimed Errani was guilty of a “light degree of fault,” which justified a 10-month ban.

Why mom’s medicine got mixed up in my fiddles constitutes “light degree of fault” versus members of Sinner’s team, on the payroll, being “no fault” is the type of discrepancy that creates an air of bias.

Still, Errani and Jasmine Paolini won the 2025 French Open doubles title. Last year, they won the Olympic gold medal in doubles and reached the finals of Wimbledon and the French Open. Nobody talks about Errani’s drug ban. She and Halep are probably heading to the Hall of Fame.

With ATP, WTA, ITF, WADA, CAS, and ITIA, tennis has an alphabet soup of oversight. What tennis needs is clear, consistent timelines and penalties for all players, regardless of ranking.

Until tennis addresses doping as a threat to the integrity of the game, rather than a public relations crisis, people will remain suspicious. After all, where is the deterrent? If a player can endure a few months of negative comments but keep the money, trophies, and adulation, then retire and waltz into the Hall of Fame, why not cheat?