The tennis world was rocked by the news of Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner being pulled up by the International Tennis Integrity Agency for doping charges at the end of the 2024 season, which meant that the world number one players on both the ATP and WTA tours were Convicted of using illegal substances over the course of the 2024 season.
While there has been plenty of outrage in the tennis community, from fans and players alike, the loudest voice is unsurprisingly that of Australian star Nick Kyrgios. The outspoken player, who will mark his return to competitive tennis for the first time in nearly 18 months at next week’s season opener at the Brisbane International, did not hold back his words at the press conference ahead of the event.
“Two world No.1s both getting done for doping is disgusting for our sport. It’s a horrible look,” Kyrgios said to reporters. “Tennis integrity right now, and everyone knows it but no one wants to speak about it, it’s awful.”
While the maverick Australian has gone into trouble with tennis authorities in the past for his on-court behavior and comments, he held up the assertion that he would never go as far as to use illegal substances himself, despite his long-term injuries preventing him. from playing since June 2023.
“Someone like me… I would never even in my entire life ever try and dope in this sport. Especially going through an injury like I went through, obviously there are things out there that could speed up healing, help me get back to prime level, help my recovery,” argued Kyrgios. “There’s so many things out there that are prohibited in our sport that I could have been doing to get me back quicker … (but) that’s just not who I am. I’m always against that.”
What are Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek guilty of?
It was revealed that trace amounts of an anabolic steroid, Clostebol, were found in Sinner’s system after routine checks following tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami last spring, but this only came to the fore later in the summer, with the Italian avoiding punishment from the ITIA.
Many players have argued that Sinner’s high-profile stature led to the governing bodies going easy on him, in a record year that saw him win the Australian Open, US Open, and ATP World Tour Finals. Similarly, Swiatek got off with a one-month suspension in the off-season despite testing positive for trimetazidine in August.
Both players were said to have no significant fault following investigations by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), both teams arguing the case that contaminated medicine was the reason for trace amounts of these banned substances.
“I (pay) my team hundreds and thousands of dollars to be the professionals they are, to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Kyrgios said regarding his impression of these proceedings. “So they knew it happened. Why did they wait five to six months to do anything about it?”
Kyrgios returns to action in Brisbane in an exciting doubles team-up with all-time great Novak Djokovic, and will also make his return in singles with a match against big-serving Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi-Perricard.
