Jannik Sinner, currently the top-ranked men’s tennis player in the world, tested positive twice for low levels of a prohibited steroid during the Indian Wells Open in March 2024.
Sinner learned about the positive results in April and was provisionally suspended April 4 and 5 as well as from April 17 to April 20. The Italian player and his team fully cooperated with an investigation by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) made public on Tuesday, which found that Sinner had “no fault or negligence.”
The ITIA concluded that Sinner’s physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, used a spray containing clostebol between March 5 and March 13 to treat a cut Naldi had sustained on March 3. During those days, he treated Sinner and conducted massages on him without gloves. The report states that Sinner was not aware that Naldi used the spray and that Naldi took the spray on recommendation from Sinner’s fitness coach but did not check its contents.
A statement published by Sinner’s team said, “Jannik Sinner acknowledges the importance of the ITIA’s strict anti-doping rules for the protection of the sport he loves.”
Sinner will forfeit the $325,000 in prize money he won for reaching the semifinals at Indian Wells. He will also lose the 400 ranking points he earned, but he remains nearly 2,000 points ahead of No. 2 Novak Djokovic in the rankings.
After pocketing $1.05 million for winning the Cincinnati Open last week, Sinner’s 2024 prize money totaled $7.28 million. This new ruling will take that number down a notch but keep him in second place among all men, behind Carlos Alcaraz, and third among all players, behind Iga Swiatek. With more than $24 million in career on-court earnings, the 23-year-old should crack the top 20 in all-time ATP prize money by the end of the year.
This isn’t the first time a top tennis player has been caught up in a doping controversy. Former women’s no. 1 Simona Halep was provisionally suspended for four years beginning in 2022, but her appeal was ultimately upheld with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) earlier this year, allowing her to return to the court. The CAS ruled Halep’s violations had a reasonable probability of being unintentional. “I am and always have been a clean athlete,” Halep said in a statement.
Several players, including Denis Shapovalov, Liam Broady and Tennys Sandgren, took to social media to criticize the lack of a clear and consistent substance testing policy. Professional Tennis Player Association co-founder Vasek Pospisil wrote a post on X pointing out that players can receive harsher punishments than Sinner’s for simply incorrectly submitting test results or no-showing for tests.
“Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance… you should be gone for 2 years,” 2022 Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios wrote in a post on X.
Sinner is the No. 1 seed heading into the 2024 U.S. Open, which begins Monday and has a winner’s prize of $3.6 million.
(This story has been updated in the third to last graf with additional information about players’ responses.)
