International Tennis Integrity Agency CEO Karen Moorhouse has exclusively told Tennis365 that Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek were not given special treatment compared to players such as Simona Halep after their failed doping tests.

Former world No 1 Halep was among those who suggested there were big differences between the way doping cases are handled in tennis in recent years, with the cases of Sinner and Swiatek sparking huge debate across the sporting community well beyond the tennis world.

Halep was initially banned for four years in September 2023, just over a year after she tested positive for roxadustat and recorded irregularities in her blood passport.

The suspension was reduced to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March after they accepted her explanation of a contaminated supplement.

Meanwhile, it was revealed last month that Swiatek had been banned for one month – the majority of it served secretly as a provisional suspension – after testing positive for the angina drug trimetazidine.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted Swiatek’s positive test was caused by contamination of the regulated non-prescription medication melatonin, which Swiatek took for jet lag and sleep issues.

Swiatek’s case came just three months after men’s world No 1 Sinner was cleared of any fault over two positive tests in March, with several leading tennis voices questioning why the Italian was allowed to continue playing after failing a drug test.

The Sinner and Swiatek cases led to accusations that players with higher status and the financial power to challenge the results with powerful legal teams have a better chance to argue their case if they fail a doping test, yet ITIA chief Moorhouse has emphatically denied that accusation in a lengthy interview with Tennis365.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) are currently appealing against the ITIA’s verdict not to ban Sinner and that appeal will be heard by the Court of Arbitration in 2025, with many observers expecting the Australian Open and US Open to face a ban from the sport.

Now ITIA chief Moorhouse has responded to claims Sinner and Swiatek were afforded preferential treatment, as she insisted all players are part of the same process.

“It’s the same rules and the same processes for every player,” begins Moorehouse, speaking to Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.

“All cases are different and each case turns on individual facts. Cases can also be quite complex, so it isn’t right to look at two headlines and draw comparisons between two cases as the detail is always the key part.

“Let’s take Swiatek and Halep. The CAS tribunal found that her (Halep’s) supplement was contaminated. So just in relation to that finding, they said nine months (suspension).

“That was the tribunal deciding on the objective fault she had and the subjective fault she should have. So what should she have done in relation to the product that was found to be contaminated?

“In relation to Swiatek, the contaminated product was a medication. So it was not unreasonable for a player to assume that a regulated medication would contain what it says on the ingredients.

“Therefore, the level of fault she could accept was at the lowest level as there was very little more she could have done reasonably to mitigate the risk of that product being contaminated.

“Halep’s contamination was not a medication. It was a collagen supplement and her level of fault was found to be higher.

“The key point here is it’s rare to find two cases that are the same they will all turn on their particular facts.”

Tennis News

Nick Kyrgios criticised for ‘poisoning’ Jannik Sinner doping saga by Grand Slam winner

Jannik Sinner warned he is ‘at risk’ of losing endorsement deals if doping case verdict is overturned

There was some confusion over why Swiatek was initially suspended for 22 days and then played in the WTA Finals and Billie Jean King Cup Finals before serving the final eight days of her one-month suspension, during a period when no major tournaments were being played.

Moorhouse offered a clear explanation of the process of Swiatek’s case and insisted the guidelines were followed as she was suspended as soon as she was sent a letter confirming her failed doping test.

“The clock started ticking from the day she received the pre-charge letter, she was immediately provisionally suspended,” continued the ITIA chief.

“As she is entitled to do under the rules, she challenged that suspension and ultimately that challenge was successful.

“It took 22 days from when we sent a pre-charge notice for a full test of the contaminated product to be carried out and she was then informed that her provisional suspension was being lifted.

“So she missed the three tournaments in Asia and her suspension is then lifted.

“When the ultimate sanction is decided to be a one-month suspension, the 22 days she has already served is deducted from it and that meant she had eight days left to complete the suspension.”

Questions over why Sinner and Swiatek’s positive doping tests were not made public until the outcome of both cases were decided have been raised, but this was the correct course of action according to ITIA protocols.

“Under the WADA code, all sports have an obligation to impose a provisional suspension when you have a positive test on an unspecified substance,” added Moorhouse.

“After that, they can use discretion on whether they announce provisional suspensions or not and there is a range of approaches taken.

“In athletics, they pretty much announce provisional suspension on day one. A lot of team sports don’t announce provisional suspension at all.

“Tennis took the decision that we don’t announce provisional suspension for at least 10 days. This allows time to test the B sample and it gives a player time to challenge the provisional suspension. If that appeal is successful and is made within 10 days, we don’t announce the provisional suspension.

“With Swiatek and Sinner, they appealed those provisional suspensions within ten days, they were successful and under our rules, we don’t announce anything at that point. While those rules are in place in tennis, our job is to follow those rules, which we did in both cases.”

The message from the ITIA is each doping case needs to be treated separately, with Halep’s very different to that of Swiatek on so many levels.

We will have lots more coverage of our exclusive interview with ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse in the coming days.

READ NEXT: Jannik Sinner warned he is ‘at risk’ of losing endorsement deals if doping case verdict is overturned