“It’s a very difficult moment for him, that’s for sure. It’s complicated, I can’t lie. But what can I say? I believe in a clean sport. I don’t know much about the affair, I’m sure that many things are known only within the team. But if they allowed Jannik to play it’s for a reason. They declared him innocent, that’s all I know and all I can say”. These are the words of Carlos Alcaraz who, as reported by Supertennis, in the press conference of the US Open returned to the Sinner affair linked to the positivity to Clostebol.
Novak Djokovic instead shifted the focus of the issue to the rules, to the control mechanism. “It is precisely issues like these that are the reasons why we founded the PTPA. At the heart of our association are the players, their rights. “In situations like the PTPA we are pushing for fair and clear protocols, standardized approaches. I understand the frustration of the players because each situation is approached differently. From what I understand, Sinner’s case was made public when it was closed. But from the moment the news was communicated to him and his team, five, six months passed. There are many problems in the system. There is a lack of clear and standardized protocols. I can understand the feelings of players who wonder if they were treated the same way.”
Djokovic also has an invitation to the organizations that govern tennis. “I hope they can learn from this case and develop a better approach for the future. I believe there needs to be a collective change.. A lot of players, I don’t even need to name names, have had pretty similar cases but different outcomes, and you have to wonder if it’s a question of available funds, if it depends on a player’s ability to pay a lot of money to hire a law firm that can represent them more efficiently. I don’t know. Is that the case? I think we all need to look into this more deeply, understand the system and how to standardize everything so that every player, regardless of ranking, history, status, can be treated the same way.”