Camille Naredo

Serbia's Novak Djokovic waves at the crowd after his defeat against Australia's Alexei Popyrin during their men's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. Angela Weiss, AFP/File

Serbia's Novak Djokovic waves at the crowd after his defeat against Australia's Alexei Popyrin during their men's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)

Article (news)

US Open

Agence France-Presse

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739852784764AFP__20240831__36EZ3PP__v1__Preview__TennisUsaOpen.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="Serbia&#x27;s Novak Djokovic waves at the crowd after his defeat against Australia&#x27;s Alexei Popyrin during their men&#x27;s singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. Angela Weiss, AFP/File"/>Serbia&#x27;s Novak Djokovic waves at the crowd after his defeat against Australia&#x27;s Alexei Popyrin during their men&#x27;s singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. Angela Weiss, AFP/File</div>DOHA, Qatar -- Novak Djokovic on Monday urged tennis authorities to overhaul the sport&#x27;s anti-doping system, pointing to &quot;inconsistencies&quot; in cases involving top stars Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek and those of lower-ranked players.World number one Sinner agreed to a three-month ban on Saturday, admitting &quot;partial responsibility&quot; for mistakes by his team which led to him twice testing positive for traces of clostebol in March last year.Sinner was facing a potential ban of two years after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against his initial exoneration by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), announced in August.In a surprising move, WADA withdrew its appeal and came to an agreement with Sinner to accept a three-month ban.<div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/othersports/2025/2/16/tennis-world-no-1-sinner-accepts-3-month-ban-to-end-doping-drama-1534">READ: World no. 1 Sinner accepts 3-month ban to end doping drama</a></div>In another high-profile case last year, five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek accepted a one-month ban after testing positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine.&quot;There&#x27;s a majority of the players that I&#x27;ve talked to in the locker room, not just in the last few days, but also last few months, that are not happy with the way this whole process has been handled,&quot; said Djokovic.&quot;A majority of the players don&#x27;t feel that it&#x27;s fair. A majority of the players feel like there is favouritism happening. It seems like, it appears that you can almost affect the outcome if you are a top player, if you have access to the top lawyers.&quot;In contrast, the recently retired Simona Halep, a former world number one, was handed a four-year ban by the ITIA in 2022 after testing positive for the blood-boosting drug roxadustat.She argued it was the result of a tainted supplement and successfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which reduced her suspension to nine months.&quot;Simona Halep and (Britain&#x27;s) Tara Moore and some other players that are maybe less known that have been struggling to resolve their cases for years, or have gotten the ban for years,&quot; said Djokovic.&quot;There is so much inconsistencies between the cases.&quot;<script data-wid="auto" type="text/javascript" src="https://content.viralize.tv/display/?zid=AAEyze-tm4MR6kEa&amp;cid=ABUdXlD9qtaChnFk&amp;activation=click&amp;vip_mode=playing&amp;vip_position=bottom-right"></script>Djokovic, who is returning to action this week at the Qatar Open for the first time since retiring injured from last month&#x27;s Australian Open semi-finals, believes a change is needed.&quot;Right now it&#x27;s a ripe time for us to really address the system, because the system and the structure obviously doesn&#x27;t work (for) anti-doping, it&#x27;s obvious,&quot; he said.&quot;I hope that in the next period of the near future that the governing bodies are going to come together, of our tours and the tennis ecosystem, and try to find a more effective way to deal with these processes.&quot;It&#x27;s inconsistent, and it appears to be very unfair.&quot;&quot;If you are going to treat every case individually or independently, which is what&#x27;s happening, then there&#x27;s no consistency, then there is no transparency, and some cases are transparent, some are not,&quot; he continued.&quot;The problem is that right now there is a lack of trust generally from the tennis players, both male and female, towards WADA and ITIA, and the whole process.&quot;<div>© Agence France-Presse</div>

Novak Djokovic on Monday urged tennis authorities to overhaul the sport's anti-doping system, pointing to "inconsistencies" in cases involving top stars Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek and those of lower-ranked players.

Novak Djokovic on Monday urged tennis authorities to overhaul the sport's anti-doping system, pointing to "inconsistencies" in cases involving top stars Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek and those of lower-ranked players.

Tennis: Djokovic calls for overhaul of 'unfair' anti-doping system

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Tennis: Djokovic calls for overhaul of 'unfair' anti-doping system

Agence France-Presse

Published Feb 18, 2025 12:50 PM PHT

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Novak Djokovic

Jannik Sinner

Iga Swiatek

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