Jannik Sinner has insisted that he did not receive preferential treatment from anti-doping authorities as he prepares for his return to action at next week's Italian Open in Rome following a three-month ban which caused anger among a section of the men's tennis tour.
Italian Sinner heads into his home tournament, the last major event before Roland Garros kicks off next month, with some suspicion that the world No. 1 was treated leniently after twice testing positive for traces of clostebol in March last year.
Both the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), whose exoneration of Sinner was announced in August, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) accepted that he did not gain any competitive advantage from the banned substance, and that he bore no fault for an accidental contamination.
"I've been criticised for supposedly being treated differently (to other players who tested positive), but it's not true," said Sinner to public broadcaster RAI.
"I've had to go to a lot of hearings and they've probably tested me more than others.
"I don't want to respond to criticism, people are free to say what they want and judge people. What matters to me is that I know what I've been through, it was difficult and I wouldn't wish anyone to go through that as an innocent person."
Sinner, whose ban ends on Sunday, has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut before providing a massage and sports therapy.
HEAVY ATMOSPHERE
But he was facing a potential two-year ban from tennis before he agreed in February to a three-month suspension with Wada, who had previously appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against his initial exoneration.
Wada said explicitly that Sinner "did not intend to cheat", but the agreement sparked fury among a section of the men's tennis tour and even led to high-profile criticism from his compatriot Federica Pellegrini, an Olympic swimming champion.
"When there's contamination, as happened to me, or if you ingest something while eating without realising it, and the doctors say it doesn't give you more strength or clarity, that's a different matter. There's a whole protocol," Sinner said.
"I really had a hard time accepting the three months because in my mind, I didn't do anything wrong."
The affair hung over Sinner's head just as he was rising to become the best player in men's tennis and a three-time Grand Slam champion.
Sinner won eight titles in 2024, including the Australian and US Opens and the ATP Finals, and he started this year with his second straight triumph in Melbourne.
But Sinner said that he hit "rock bottom" at the most recent Australian Open, where he thought about "giving it all up".
"I wasn't comfortable in the dressing room, the other players looked at me differently," he said.
"I didn't like it at all. I felt like being in tennis with that atmosphere was too much. I was always someone who joked about, who went in the dressing room speaking with whoever, but it became different, I wasn't at ease."