From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones.
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Yarnick Sinner is defending his title as the world's best male tennis player at the Australian Open, but come April, he'll be defending himself in another arena, in the court of arbitration for sport. Last year, the tennis world was shocked by revelations that both Sinner and women's world number two Egos Fantec had tested positive for banned substances. Their cases were dealt with in private, raising questions about whether their high profiles and considerable resources gave them an unfair
advantage when it came to dodging public scrutiny. Today's sports journalist and author of the sub Stack, But do you actually like sport? Molly mcelwey on the twin doping scandals overshadowing the Australian Open. It's Tuesday, January twenty one. Molly, Welcome to seven AM. Thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me.
So there is one player in particular that I want to ask you about. He's a favorite to win. He won last year and he's currently the top ranked men's player in the world.
Sinner. What can you tell me about him? Well, Yannick Center. Like you say, he's the world number one.
He's a reigning champion in Melbourne and twenty twenty four was really the year of Yannick Center.
And that's a great sunsation away the Yanick centner.
So when the Australian Open, he's mad and major happens in Melbourne.
Was the Open last year was his first Grand Slam title. He also won the US Open in September, lad th first pay.
Sooner has Josh what the US Hulburn six foot seventy five and the Davis Cup with Italy. Yeah, and once more he Annic Sinner just too good.
It's back to back Davis Cup titles. In this golden age of Italian tennis.
He kind of swept through tennis with such ease.
In a way, he's a player that kind of smothers his opponents. He's got an incredible game that allows him to kind of dominate other players. He's very complete, which is quite rare for someone so young.
He's twenty three.
But his character kind of defies maybe the Italian stereotypes. I think people expecting an Italian tennis player to be kind of fiery, to be passionate on court, to kind of bring that emotion, whereas Sinner is the complete opposite. He keeps a lit in his emotions throughout matches also off the court as well.
And you're defending champion here, So what is it that you love about Australia, these fans, this court?
What is it that you love about this this country?
So many things, But you know, moostly the crowd and the fan they give me so much support.
But for sure he's one of the players who is being looked at, along with Carlos al Grazers, the future of men's tennis. But there's also this kind of dark cloud hanging over him as well because he failed two drug tests in twenty twenty four.
Okay, well let's talk about that. Then tell me about the drug tests he failed and about how that came about.
So it all started for Sinner last March, breaking news concerning the men's number one Yonick. Sinner tested positive twice for a band anabolic steroid at Indian Worlds in March.
Sinna very quickly told the ITA, which is the International Tennis Integrity Agency, that he had an explanation for it. They figured out that the source of the possible in his system must have come from his physiotherapist who had sprayed a cut on his own hand with a substance that contained the steroid, and then through a massage session he had with Sinner, had inadvertently sprayed that healing spraid into his skin.
Trace elements less than a billionth of a gram of constables. That is really a small amount.
It's kind of a convolution explanation.
But the Itia accepted it and ultimately found that Sinner bore no fault, no negligence in the case, and he had not intentionally done anything to dope. The interesting thing is that the public didn't find out about these failed drugs tests until all this.
March this year. We didn't know this, but he tested twice at the time, we didn't know this, twice positive for a constable.
Which is and that was on the eve of the US Open, which he went on to win.
So it's a strange scenario where the one of the humblayer, the guy who's kind of dominating the sport, he fails to drug tests and no one kind of finds out about it until the agency in charge of doping in the sport decides that he bought no negli and he's not going to suffer kind of any huge consequences beyond losing his prize money from the two tournaments that he was competing in at the time with the failed drug tests and losing his ranking points from those events.
Okay, And so I know that Sinner isn't the only high profile player to have found himself in a situation like this recently. Can you tell me a bit about the others?
Yeah, So, along with Sinner, Egosiontech through for the last two years has been the world number one. She's now the world number two, five time Grand Slam champion. She also failed a drug test last year.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency have confirmed that eagashion Tech has accepted a one month suspension under the Tennis Anti Doping program.
After that, she tested positive for a kind of heart medication it's called TMZ. She put it down to contamination of some medication that she had been taking for years for fatigue and for jet lag.
But I got to say, yeah, for sure, it wasn't easy. You know, it was probably like the worst time in my life and just having the feeling that everything, you know that I kind of built can be taken away so quickly because of something you have no control over.
It just it was pretty crazy for me, and.
The ITIA and her team were able to establish that the batch of the medication that she had taken had been contaminated and it was dealt with pretty quickly. She tested positive in August, she competed at the US Open and then she was given a one month ban, but she was able to play out that ban kind of in private. She basically told people that she was suffered from fatigue and she had changed coaches, so she was taking a break from the sport for a month. I mean,
in staiom Tics case, that's kind of been resolved. She served her one month ban. But in the case of Sinner, we now have this ongoing saga because WADA have come back and appealed the itia's decision.
On his case.
Sinner's Australian Open campaign is being overshadowed by a new twist in his ongoing doping drama. Well Blake, the World Anti Doping Agency, has.
Appealed the decision that originally cleared Yannick Cinner after he tested positive to steroids twice in twenty twenty four.
That's going to play out in April and they are actually seeking a one to two year bad for him, so that could have huge consequences for the sport. All the while they played up the Straight and Open this month.
I mean, what is the conversation that's happening amongst the tennis community right now then around whether or not someone like Sinner, whose case I suppose now is a bit up in the air, should be able to play at the Australian Open.
Given the situation I.
Mean on the court, it seems like adverc being is kind of business as usual.
You've got Center.
Dam overcoming adversity, massive result for Yanick Center.
But he is through to the quart of finance.
It didn't seem like there was any animal coming from the Melbourne cloud here. But we've had people including Curious, for example, a huge name in tennis in Australian sport.
He's called the entire episode disgusting. It's been handled horrifically in our sport.
And two world number ones both getting done for doping is disgusting for our sport.
It's it's a horrible look. Really been heavily cristical of Sinner.
If my physiotherapist contamine that in me and put me in this position, I'd be I'd probably never talk to the guy again.
But he had the guy in these team for five months acting like nothing happened. That's SAE susage anything. If you ask me.
It's a really dark cloud that has kind of been hovering over tennis. And there's other players who've spoken about whether this process has been fair. Someone like two time grands I'm champion and another formal world number one, Simona Hallop has accused the IDIA of dealing with these two cases very differently than how they dealt with Her own
has dragged out for nearly two years. She received four year ban for failing her drug test and how to appeal it, and it was eventually reduced to nine months, But for her it stinks of being unfair because her case was dealt with in a very public way, whereas
the swimtech and sins what not. And I think the main issue here is not the individual cases, but rather what this whole saga says about the way that we deal with doping and drug testing in sport and whether the systems are completely there, whether it's a completely equal playing field for everyone.
Coming up after the break. What happens when you fail a drug test and you don't have millions to defend yourself. Molly, can we talk a bit more about the equal playing field? What does the Sinner and Swantech saga tell you about what it requires to get through something.
Like this unscathed. I mean, the itia maintains that every player is treated the same.
But the problem with the process is that if you have more resources available like Sinner, like Siontech, you can get through the process quicker, and that makes a huge difference to where you ultimately will end up in your career. I mean, Top has earned thirty three million US dollars in career prize money, Sinner has earned thirty seven.
Like, they've got a lot of resources behind them.
They have huge management teams, they've got sponsors, they keep track with everything they put in their body, from food, from supplements, from medication.
Whereas if you're a player outside the top one hundred, top two hundred, you can barely afford to have a coach.
So how are you going to assemble this kind of incredible team to defend you. It's something that a British player in recent years, Tara Moore has spoken about a lot.
I think I have one of the most crazy stories on the tour. You know, I went to Columbia, failed the drug test out there, and it's just something I never thought I would go through.
Because she was outside the top one hundred, trying to build her career, and when she tested positive for banned substance, she ended up losing nineteen months of her career.
You know, even if in this country, if you murder someone, you have the right to a trial, you have the right to a lawyer, you have the right, but this is like almost the opposite. If you don't have the money or the funds, you're guilty.
It took her longer to prove the source of her failed JOUB test. It's been found that hers.
Was also a case of contamination.
But in order to get to the point where she could prove that she had already fallen six hundred ranking places. She's now thousands of pounds in debt to the lawyers that she had to employ at different points in this process, and her career is kind of in tatters.
Yeah, I mean, I think the stakes couldn't be higher in the sense that people want to be able to trust that the person they're seeing win actually did win and did win fairly totally.
I mean, we've seen how that has played out in much more dramatic ways in other sports, in cycling, for example, with the huge kind of drug scandal that erupted in the start of the centuries.
It's kind of a huge, a huge issue for fans.
People want to be able to get behind people and to trust that they are superhuman because they are just so good at the sport, not because of any other reason. What does it say about the future of Dennis if you've got a player like Sinna, who if in acrol his appeal happens and he loses and he's given a one or two year ban, how do we look back on these last few months, How does history kind of
correct itself? Will we look at these titles as titles that need to have kind of an asterisk alongside it, because someone like Sinner, of his profile, his stature, his ability, he's playing for a space and the kind of history books, and it raises all kinds of questions about whether a player should continue playing while this process.
Is going on.
It's a very kind of delicate balance you've got to find in this sport. And I think there's a lot of people right now who are questioning whether the powers that we have found that delicate balance at all.
Well, Mollie, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, thanks f having me.
Also in the news today, Israel has confirmed ninety Palestinian prisoners have been freed in the first exchange of the ceasefire deal with Hermas. It comes after three hostages freed by Hermas have been reunited with their families inside Israel. The ceasefire, which came into effect on Sunday, states so for every Israeli hostage released, thirty Palestinian prisoners will be
freed from Israeli jails. And online gambling company sports bet is facing a class action lawsuit to recover millions of dollars allegedly lost through unlawful in game bets facilitated by the company. The class action, launched by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, alleges that so called InPlay bets or live bets that involve betting on a sporting event after it has commenced are prohibited in Australia. The lawsuit is open to anyone who lost winnings using this service in the past six years.