By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Tuesday, August 20, 2024
"I would think in the last 50 years some players have snuck through with these things," Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Chrissie Evert said when asked about tennis' anti-doping process.
Photo credit: Pete Staples/USTA
Tennis’ anti-doping policy isn't a star system.
However, it does protect superstars, Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Chrissie Evert told the media today.
More: Jannik Sinner Tests Positive for Steroids
Former world No. 1 champions Evert and John McEnroe conducted a Zoom call with the media today promoting ESPN’s first ball to last ball US Open coverage for the 10th consecutive year.
Main-draw action starts on ESPN at noon on Monday, August 26th. Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., you can watch McEnroe in action alongside Novak Djokovic against Andre Agassi and Carlos Alcaraz on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes as part of the US Open’s Stars at the Open.
Asked her reaction to today’s news that world No. 1 Jannik Sinner twice tested positive for a banned steroid last March, yet won’t be banned because a tribunal found “no fault” on the Italian’s part, Evert offered a nuanced view.
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The 18-time Grand Slam champion said while she believes tennis’ drug testing is “accurate”, she also believes “they protect the top players” when it comes to doping bans.
“I do think that they protect the top players. So by protecting I mean: they’re gonna keep it secret for a couple of months,” Evert told the media on today’s Zoom call. “They’re going to keep certain things secret—if you're a top player—because they don’t want the press, the players don’t want the press.
“It’s all going to come out in three months anyway. So I do think there is some protection there than if you were Joe Smith ranked 400 in the world.”
A former world No. 1 in singles and doubles—and one of the few champions to hold the top spot in both disciplines simultaneously—McEnroe suggests a double standard sometimes at work.
Pointing to the independent tribunal accepting Sinner’s claim of “inadvertent contamination” through a cream administered by a physiotherapist who wasn’t wearing gloves, McEnroe questioned why Simona Halep served a suspension despite also citing inadvertent contamination.
“I understand tennis is tested virtually more than any other sport,” McEnroe told the media. “This news just came out. It is certainly surprising and shocking at this moment. Especially that it happened in March and six months have gone by and this is the first anyone has heard about it.
“I don’t know how they differentiate between one person saying he was unaware of it and someone else who says the same thing gets suspended.
"I think Halep said that and she was suspended for 18 months and Sinner said he unknowingly had this and then he’s not suspended.”
McEnroe said the players want a level playing field when it comes to anti-doping measures.
“So clearly from the players’ standpoint you want it to be sort of uniform,” McEnroe said. “This is a guy at the moment ranked No. 1 in the world. This is surprising news for all of us.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sport unanimously ruled Halep's four-year ban reduced to nine months in a decision issued last March.
The CAS ruled the two-time Grand Slam champion Halep had "on the balance of probabilities” showed her positive test for a banned substance Roxadustat was unintentional and caused by a contaminated supplement as she claimed.
"Although the CAS Panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence," the CAS said in its ruling.
For years, tennis insiders and fans have suggested “silent bans” where a star player is suddenly sidelined for several months for apparent injury are actually tennis’ preferred method of dealing with doping suspensions without publicly tainting the player or the sport for doping.
That view became more prevalent when Andre Agassi admitted in his memoir Open to serving a silent ban after testing positive for the banned recreational drug crystal meth.
In his memoir, Agassi recalls writing he lied to the ATP claiming he accidentally ingested meth drinking from a soda spiked with the drug that his assistant, Slim, had left on the counter. In Agassi's case he served a silent ban, that may well have stayed quiet, if he didn't self-report in his memoir.
Australian Open champion Sinner tested positive twice in March.
So why was Sinner still playing after two positive tests?
The ITIA said after each positive test, a provisional suspension, which some refer to as "a silent ban", was applied because the player has the right to appeal failed drug tests.
"On both occasions, Sinner successfully appealed the provisional suspension and so has been able to continue playing," the ITIA said.
Former Grand Slam champions ranging from Maria Sharapova to Martina Hingis to Marin Cilic have each served doping suspensions in the past, but do some stars get a pass these days?
Evert expressed surprise that in the aftermath of Sharapova’s doping ban for using the banned substance Meldonium that some players and their teams haven’t shown vigilance. Then again, perhaps they have.
“I think tennis has done an accurate job. My only question is the steroid Clostebol, yes it was on the counter in Italy. You can buy it off the counter, so that’s just like buying aspirin off the counter,” Evert said. “Still these players have teams to really examine what is in these substances. And I would have thought especially since Maria Sharapova saga that teams would be more aware of what to look for in any substance that their players are taking.
“It’s off the counter yet it still has a steroid, which is banned. You can’t do that steroid and then it turns out to be a spray.”
Evert suggests that while the news of Sinner’s positive steroid test is stunning it’s actually not surprising.
Because if you follow the game, then you have to believe it's happened before.
“I would think in the last 50 years some players have snuck through with these things, you know?” Evert said. “That they haven’t gotten caught.
"I think they’re just trying to be extra careful now more than ever.”