"We are kind of celebrities" - Iga Swiatek shows sympathy for Jannik Sinner after Italian faces similar doping ban

Iga Swiatek has shared her thoughts on Jannik Sinner agreeing to a three-month doping suspension from WADA last week. The Pole joked that the fallout from the Italian's and her cases over the last few months has given them "celebrity" statuses.

Sinner tested positive for clostebol last March while competing at the Indian Wells Masters. The Italian was found to be at "no fault nor negligence" by the International Tennis Integrity Agency five months later. He also didn't face time away from the tour besides a provisional suspension of five days.

Although WADA sought to challenge the above ruling in the Court of Arbitration for Sport later last year, looking for a ban of 1-2 years, the anti-doping outfit reached a "settlement" with the World No. 1 on Saturday (February 15).

Jannik Sinner was banned by WADA for three months, from February 9 to May 4, and didn't lose any ATP rankings points, as it believes the Italian "didn't intend to cheat". Iga Swiatek spoke on the topic in a press conference ahead of her Dubai Tennis Championships campaign on Monday.

"Well, honestly there’s no point to, like, overthink it. I didn’t think much. Every case is different. Every story is different, for sure. Because of Jannik’s or my situation, we are like kind of even celebrities, besides playing tennis," Iga Swiatek said.

"Everybody thinks of it from a hundred different perspectives. But I just try to stick to the facts and read the documents. I trust that the process at the end went fair. That’s the only thing I do because I try not to judge."

Swiatek added:

"I know that for Jannik, like, I don’t know because I haven’t talked to him, but I assume that it must have been a tough time, tough process. I’ve been through, like, something similar. But yeah, so I guess I don’t wish for any player for these kind of things to happen. I hope he’s going to be over it soon and he will just get back to tennis."

Last November, the ITIA announced that Swiatek had been on the sidelines from September 12 to October 4 after the banned substance trimetazidine was detected in her system during a regular doping test.

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Iga Swiatek on whether she could potentially face Jannik Sinner's fate: "Every case is different"

Iga Swiatek practices at the Dubai Tennis Championships (Source: Getty)

Iga Swiatek escaped a longer ban as her team was able to prove that she had accidentally taken the prohibited substance, as it had contaminated the 1-2 grams of melatonin that she took.

In that context, in the press conference ahead of her Dubai Tennis Championships campaign on Monday, Swiatek was asked about the prospect of WADA challenging the ITIA's ruling on her case following Jannik Sinner's three-month ban. The World No. 2 maintained that her and the Italian's cases were different while expressing confidence in her innocence.

"Because as I said, every case is different," Iga Swiatek said. "There’s no reason to compare and put these two things beside each other. So yeah, it was totally different from the beginning."

"Also we provided, like, all the documentation really precisely. We did all we needed and we followed the instructions, so there was no space and no point for WADA to appeal even, I would say. So yeah, I was pretty sure that I’ll be done with it because my case was just a contamination. I found the source. That’s it."

Swiatek will be eager to win her first title in Dubai this week. The 23-year-old Pole reached the championship match at the WTA 1000 tournament in 2023, losing to Barbora Krejcikova.