Bartoli on Sinner: "It doesn't matter to him which tournaments he misses".

Adrien Guyot

le 16/02/2025 à 09h09

2 min to read

Bartoli Sinner

Jannik Sinner won't be on tour for the next few weeks.

The Italian, world number 1, tested positive for clostebol during Indian Wells last year and will serve a three-month suspension after agreeing a sanction with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

As a result, the three-time Grand Slam winner will be unable to take part in the world's biggest tournaments until May 4.

Reactions were swift to follow, with many tennis players, both active and retired, expressing their views on the hot news.

This is also the case for Marion Bartoli. The Frenchwoman, who won Wimbledon in 2013, finds it hard to understand the sanction imposed on Sinner.

"He had a much heavier sword of Damocles hanging over his head, because at the beginning there was even talk of a two-year suspension.

I'm obliged to read the reports and say that the experts all described this doping as unintentional, I'm no one to question all that.

Now, where I find it hard to understand this decision is that there is case law at the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport), which is located in Switzerland, and that the case law is even higher than that, i.e. even for negligence, there was more than three months.

As luck would have it, the President of the ATP is Italian, and as luck would have it, he'll be able to take over at home, in Rome.

What's disturbing about this story is that we know very well that the most important thing for these players is the Grand Slam tournaments, and he's not going to miss any of them.

The tournaments he misses are of no importance to him in his career today. Sinner is a war machine on hard court.

All he has left to conquer are the French Open and Wimbledon, but over the last year and a half, he's been virtually unbeatable on hard court.

Having interviewed Sinner on numerous occasions, when you ask him questions, you get the impression that the guy's a saint and that he's done absolutely nothing.

When you see him play tennis, you don't get the impression that anything is troubling him, so, compared to the case law that has been established for other sportsmen and women, I just think that the coating is a little bit heavy to swallow", Bartoli assured Les Grandes Gueules du Sport on RMC.