What is it really about: that men’s tennis has learned nothing since the shameful case of Andre Agassi, or that it really had nothing to learn, because it was anything but an accident? The problem then would not be Jannik Sinner, the problem would be the system.
Flashback to 2009: Andre Agassi publishes ‘Open’, an autobiography that was a bestseller and earned him a lot of money. A bestseller in which he recounts that in 1997 he used crystal methamphetamine and that, when alerted by the ATP that he had tested positive, he deceived the governing body of men’s tennis with a letter in which he ‘combined lies with intervals of truth’.
Agassi successfully lied after being alerted by the ATP of his positive test. That personal alert is a gesture outside the rules that was not made to other sanctioned players in those turbulent years of the late 1990s and early 2000’s. The years when French political authorities insisted on Rafael Nadal’s doping, the years when Argentine tennis players were dropping like flies.
That was in 1997, two years before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) came into being. Fifteen years after that book, the substance is not ‘crystal meth’, which admittedly did not enhance sporting performance, but the steroid clostebol. But the effect on the sport’s image is just as devastating. With one important difference: this time it is mainly the Anglo-Saxon world that is complaining.
Argentine Guillermo Coria was suspended for seven months after nandrolone was found in his system in 2001. Coria proved that the substance was in a contaminated supplement, but the anti-doping authorities applied the theory of ‘strict liability’, which states that if there is something in your body, the responsibility and sanctions are yours.
In Sinner’s case this was not the case, the Italian managed to avoid the ‘strict liability’ theory. The demonstration that there was no intent was enough to avoid a career-stopping sanction. In Agassi’s case, there was not even a sanction, and we must insist on the details: he consumed a prohibited substance, was discovered, was alerted, lied and came out absolutely unscathed. A dream for any tennis player in his situation.
Hard to deny Canadian Dennis Shapovalov a share of reason when he writes ‘Different rules for different players’.
And although Shapovalov later explained himself in more detail and emphasised that he has nothing personal against Sinner, the rebellion of the players was already a fact. From a star like Novak Djokovic to a journeyman like Liam Broady.
‘I understand the players‘ frustration with the lack of consistency,’ said the Serb. ‘The system has a lot of problems. I hope the powers of our sport will learn from this and have a better management in the future. There has to be a change.’
Broady was Britishly acidic with Sinner: ‘He has presidential interviews with ESPN to maintain his image. Where is this energy for everyone else? I’ve never seen anything like this.’
In tennis, as in life, it’s not just about being, it’s also important to look. Appearances matter. And what appears to large swathes of the tennis world is that two stars like Andre Agassi and Jannik Sinner received what amounts to preferential treatment.
That is why Agassi’s celebratory presence at the US Open at the very moment when the ‘Sinner case’ broke out is not without some noise. Not because he used crystal meth, an entirely private decision that should not be judged by anyone, but because he was given privileged treatment in a world that is usually ruthless when it comes to punishment.
Especially the weakest. Because something else makes noise, something highlighted by Richard Ings, an Australian who was a renowned umpire and then head of the ATP’s anti-doping programme between 2001 and 2005, as well as head of his country’s Anti-Doping Agency between 2005 and 2010: it is too important to have a good lawyer.
‘High net worth tennis players have enormous resources to secure the best representation with expertise in anti-doping law,’ said Ings, who is now enthusiastically moving into the world of renewable energy, on the social networking site X. ’It’s too important to have a good lawyer.
And what happens if you test positive in an anti-doping test, but you’re, say, 234th in the world rankings?
‘You’re pretty much screwed.’
