Jannik Sinner had tremendous success on the court this 2025 season.
He won 58 of the 64 matches he played, resulting in six titles including the Australian Open, Wimbledon, ATP Finals and the Paris Masters 1000. Despite playing in just 12 tournaments, he finished only 550 points behind Carlos Alcaraz for the honor of being Year-end No. 1.
It is the context behind having played just 12 tournaments this year that Sinner’s 2025 season carries a dark cloud over it.
Following his Australian Open win, Sinner was suspended for three months (Feb. 9 – May 4) from the ATP circuit after testing positive twice for the anabolic steroid clostebol on March 10th and 18th of 2024. It meant he was unable to play in four Masters 1000 events across Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid.
Is that a fair penalty? With the season complete, we can conclude from a results standpoint he missed out on precious weeks at the top of the rankings and the year-end No. 1 because of this period of absence. It also feels a bit convenient that the suspension was announced after he was able to successfully defend his Australian Open crown. Even more convenient is that the suspension ended just before the Italian Open in Rome where he could make a return in front of his home crowd and be ready for the French Open.
In that sense, some may consider Sinner fortunate to have had the opportunity to compete with Alcaraz for top spot until the very end of the year. Let’s dive deeper on how the Italian’s controversial yet commanding season should be viewed.
Sinner And Alcaraz In A League Of Their Own
It’s a bit absurd that Sinner could have been suspended for both the Australian Open and French Open and his results would have still been good enough to finish as the second-ranked player in men’s tennis.
He earned 2,000 points for winning the Australian Open and another 1,300 for losing the final to Alcaraz. Strip away those 3,300 points and Sinner still finishes just over 3,000 points ahead of third-placed Alexander Zverev.
You see it in the Sincaraz matches, you see it in Sinner’s dominance against everyone else, there is no disputing the 24 year old’s ability.
That French Open final with Alcaraz saving one match point after another before going on to win will live long in the memory. They played each other six times in 2025, a tournament final marking each occasion. Only the Cincinnati final failed to live up to the billing as Sinner was forced to retire with a sickness. Alcaraz won three of the other five including two Slam finals.
Sinner lost two matches to players not named Alcaraz all year. One was to Tallon Griekspoor with an injury retirement in the deciding third set and the other a bit of a freak loss to Alexander Bublik on the grass of Halle before going on to win Wimbledon.
After the suspension, there were questions asked of how Sinner would cope with it all mentally and whether he could maintain a tremendous standard without the aid of clostebol. He answered those questions emphatically, especially in the way he defeated Alcaraz at the Wimbledon final.
Was The Sinner Process Fair?
To answer this, we have to understand the circumstances behind clostebol being found in Sinner’s system first.
Trofodermin is an over the counter cream or spray that is readily available in pharmacies across Europe and especially popular in Italy. It is used to help treat cuts and wounds. Sinner’s physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi claimed he was given the product by Sinner’s fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara to treat a cut on his hand.
It is from that application that the courts have deemed the inadvertent transfer to Sinner’s body to have happened. There have been other similar cases involving other athletes and clostebol. It is under this context that Sinner was deemed to have had no intent to cheat and as a result come away with just a three-month suspension. It helped, too, that the amount of clostebol found in the positive tests amounted to a “billionth of a gram.”
In the words of Andy Roddick, Sinner would have to be a fool to intentionally consume a steroid and have such a minuscule amount that nothing could be gained from it.
Still, fault lies with both Naldi and Ferrara. Considering their respective professions and that they are both Italian, they absolutely ought to have known better when making the conscious decision to use Trofodermin.
Sinner was provisionally suspended in April 2024 after testing positive in March, but successfully challenged and overturned both positive cases within a week. Receiving such a fast turnaround time reeked of favorable treatment. In August, the independent tribunal publicly declared that there would be no ban. Sinner went on to win the US Open and never heard anything again until after winning the 2025 Australian Open. That’s when WADA’s appeal resulted in a three-month suspension.
What Should Sinner’s Suspension Have Been?
There are players who have faced provisional suspensions for nearly two years before receiving an independent tribunal. Simona Halep, someone who has won two Grand Slam titles and been World No. 1, had her independent tribunal nearly a full year after receiving her provisional suspension. As much as tennis has tried to hide this Sinner situation under the rug, the timeline makes absolutely no sense.
At a time when the men’s game needed new heroes transitioning from Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, this was tennis’ nightmare scenario. If Sinner faced a provisional suspension that saw him sit out action from April 2024 until April 2025, things are viewed quite differently and that includes the record books.
He wouldn’t have won the US Open to wrap up 2024, nor the Shanghai Masters and ATP Finals. He also would’ve been absent to defend his title in Australia to open 2025, too. The mental toll would be quite different and it’s hard to believe he’d re-hire Ferrara. He has turned his back on Naldi and so that part likely stays the same.
I’m inclined to believe that the events leading to Sinner’s positive doping tests happened as they did. That his physio made a poor choice in treatment for his cut and that’s how the clostebol was transferred. It still deserved a more stern punishment.
Missing four Masters 1000 events isn’t insignificant. Every doping suspension sets a standard, though, and this was a poor one. He should have missed at least one Grand Slam.
What Does A More Appropriate Suspension Change?
In some ways, the light suspension is what will keep a cloud hanging over Sinner. If he were to have missed at least one Slam, there would have been a greater sense of justice in the public court of opinion.
Sure, plenty have moved on and are able to appreciate the extraordinary tennis he’s able to play. We should all be able to appreciate that. I’m just not sure the seemingly orchestrated timeline of his suspension enhances his innocence in all this.
Sinner had every right to fight for his innocence and minimize his punishment. It’s not really a fault of his own that matters played out the way they did but that doesn’t change the reality that they did.
He handles himself in the media really well, says all the right things, and this sport needs his rivalry with Alcaraz. What happened away from the tennis court this season was wrong, though, and it was bad enough to always hold a place alongside Sinner’s trophies in 2025.
