Emma Raducanu says the chance of ingesting a contaminated substance is a notable concern on the minds of tennis players at a time when Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek continue to navigate the fallout of two of the most high profile anti-doping cases in the history of the sport.

Speaking at her pre-tournament press conference at the Australian Open before her first round match against the 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova on Monday, Raducanu said players must “manage the controllables” as well as they can. She had suffered a significant insect bite the previous day but declined the antiseptic spray she was provided because she did not want to risk taking a banned substance.

“I got really badly bitten by I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” said Raducanu. “They flared up and swelled up really a lot. Someone was giving me this antiseptic spray, natural, to try to ease the bites. I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want to spray it. I was just left there with my swollen ankle and hand. I was like: ‘I’m just going to tough it out because I don’t want to risk it’.

“It’s obviously a concern on our mind. We’re all in the same boat. I think it’s just how we manage as best as we can the controllables. If something out of our control happens, then it’s going to be a bit of a struggle to try and prove.”

Sinner, the world no 1 and Australian Open title favourite, still does not know the date of his appeal hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas). Sinner was initially found to bear no fault or negligence and he received no suspension in August after testing positive for the banned substance clostebol. Sinner had successfully argued the substance had entered his body by contamination through his physio, Giacomo Naldi, but the ruling was subsequently appealed to Cas by the World Anti Doping Agency (Wada).

“I know exactly as much as you [journalists] know,” said Sinner. “We are in a stage where we don’t know many, many things. You think about this, of course. I would lie if I would tell you I forget. No, it’s not like this. It’s something what I have with me now already for quite a long time. But it is what it is. I’m here trying to prepare for the Grand Slam. Let’s see how it goes.”

Just one month after Sinner’s initial ruling, the five-time grand slam champion Swiatek tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine. Although she is now ranked No 2, she was ranked No 1 when she was informed of the anti-doping rule violation. In November, an independent tribunal ruled that the Pole’s level of fault was “at the lowest end of the range” for no significant fault or negligence.

During her anti-doping hearing, Swiatek successfully proved the presence of the banned substance in her body was the consequence of her melatonin medication being contaminated. Both her team and the International Tennis Integrity Agency sent Swiatek’s medication for tests at different laboratories and the results of both sets of tests showed the medication had been contaminated with trimetazidine. On Friday, she described the aftermath of learning that she had tested positive for a banned substance as “the worst time in my life”.

“It wasn’t easy. It was probably like the worst time in my life,” said Swiatek. “And the fact that I had no control over this whole situation and I had no chance to avoid it, yeah, it made it even worse because I’m a control freak a little bit. Just having the feeling that everything that I kind of built can be taken away so quickly because of something you have no control over, it was pretty crazy for me and really abstract.”

Swiatek said she initially dreaded the reaction of her peers to the news she failed an anti-doping test but that the response has been extremely supportive.

“In the locker room, the girls are great,” said Swiatek. “I already saw [at the] exhibition in Abu Dhabi that they are really supportive. Most of them even approached me. They’re like: “Hey, how can we avoid this? Is there any way that we can be more careful?” They are worried this can happen to them, as well. There are many top players – I’m not going to say names – that are really support[ive]. I really appreciate that, because it made me feel better when I came back and I didn’t know how it was going to be.”