Jannik Sinner has a date for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appeal into his doping case which could lead to him being banned from tennis for up to two years.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has scheduled a behind-closed-doors hearing April 16 and 17 2025 at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, it confirmed in a news release Friday January 10.

Speaking in Melbourne hours before the CAS statement, Sinner acknowledged that waiting to know when the appeal would be heard had weighed on him.

“I would lie if I would tell you I forget,” the Italian told reporters in a news conference ahead of the Australian Open, where he is defending champion. “I know much as you.”

The timing of the hearing could put Sinner in line to miss three or more Grand Slams, if CAS upholds WADA’s push for a ban of one or two years.

WADA lodged the appeal in September, after an independent tribunal convened by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) and conducted by Sports Resolutions had ruled that Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” for two positive tests for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid. It stripped him of his ranking points and prize money from the ATP Masters 1000 tournament at Indian Wells where the first test took place, but did not impose any ban on Sinner.

When WADA confirmed the appeal, Sinner expressed his surprise at the decision after “three separate hearings in each case confirming my innocence” in a statement. The ITIA provisionally suspended Sinner from tennis after each positive test, but he appealed those suspensions successfully and so was allowed to continue to play. In all three hearings, the panel accepted Sinner’s explanation that his physio, Giacomo Naldi, used a healing spray containing clostebol on his hand before giving Sinner a massage which led to transdermal contamination. Sinner parted company with Naldi and his trainer Umberto Ferrara on the eve of the U.S. Open.

WADA will argue that the “no fault or negligence” ruling was not correct, and is thus seeking a “period of ineligibility” for the world No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion. Because clostebol is an ingredient in the healing spray, and not a contaminant, the maximum period for a sanction is four years if used intentionally. The ITIA and WADA both accept that Sinner’s positive test was not intentional, so the maximum reduces to two years.

The explanation and absence of a ban has drawn criticism and allegations of double standards in tennis from some of Sinner’s peers, especially Australian player Nick Kyrgios. Sinner declined to comment on some of those responses in Melbourne, but acknowledged that they impacted him.

“How do I block it? It’s not that you just put it in a part and you just say, I don’t think anymore about this, but in my mind, I know exactly what happened,” the Italian said.

“And that’s how I block it. No, I don’t, I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s why I’m still here. And that’s why I’m still playing.

“I don’t want to respond on what Nick [Kyrgios] said or what the other players say.

“I think the the most important part is to have my people around me who I can trust. People they exactly know what happened. And that’s it.”

ITIA chief executive Karen Moorhouse dismissed the idea that there are discrepancies in treatment in December, following five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek’s one-month ban for a positive test for TMZ, a heart medication. Swiatek determined via laboratory testing that her melatonin medication had been contaminated.

“It’s the same rules and the same processes for every player. All cases are different and each case turns on individual facts,” she told reporters in a media briefing.

Sinner will play Chilean Nicolas Jarry in the first round of the Australian Open, which begins January 12.

(Kelly Defina / Getty Images)