Jannik Sinner spent ‘a lot of money’ to avoid tennis drugs ban as coach opens up
Jannik Sinner avoided a provisional suspension after returning two positive tests in March.
Darren Cahill shed light on the fallout from Jannik Sinner’s two positive test results (Image: ESPN )
Jannik Sinner’s coach has explained how the world No.1 was able to avoid a provisional suspension after testing positive for a banned substance twice earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Sinner and the International Tennis Integrity Agency announced that an independent tribunal ruled that he bore “no fault or negligence” after his test samples contained “low levels” of clostebol.
Experts accepted the positive tests were the result of contamination through his physiotherapist. But there have been questions about how Sinner escaped a provisional suspension from the time of the positive test until the independent tribunal when other players in the same situation have previously been banned until they have proven their case.
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Darren Cahill, the Italian’s coach of two years, has now shed light on the process and confessed that it helped that Sinner had “a lot of money” to hire expert legal help. Cahill also works as a pundit for ESPN and appeared on the American TV channel to give an insight into the case, where Chris McKendry asked whether Sinner’s standing as the world No.1 player would have helped him.
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And Cahill explained that with a high ranking comes more money. “I think every case gets treated the same,” he started. “The one thing I will say though, it makes it a little bit easier for someone that’s highly-ranked because you can afford to fight this case properly and fairly. Whereas I think a player ranked 300 or 500 or 1000 in the world, if they get into this situation, they don’t have the funds.”
While Cahill wasn’t directly involved in the process, he explained the lengths Sinner and his legal team needed to go to. The 58-year-old continued: “I don’t know how much it’s cost him to put together his legal team and to get the experts.
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“When they determined whether or not the story that we said and how this substance got into his system, the ITIA, they hired two of their own experts to go through and find out whether or not this story is credible, and we had one of our experts as well. So three experts all said that it’s highly likely this story is correct. So to do that you have to have a lot of money to get those experts, so players that are not highly-ranked can’t afford to fight their cases properly. But I think the integrity of the way it was handled, the ranking doesn’t matter.”
Sinner and his team successfully argued that he was contaminated through his physio. The world No. 1’s fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara bought over-the-counter spray Trofodermi in Italy. His physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi then cut his finger on a scalpel during Indian Wells and used Ferrera’s Trofodermi spray each morning for just over a week.
He continued to massage Sinner without wearing gloves. The 23-year-old often has small cuts and sores on his back and feet. And the three experts ruled this was a plausible explanation for contamination. As soon as Sinner and his team were notified of the positive tests at the conclusion of the Miami Open – a tournament he won – they were immediately able to link it back to the spray as several over-the-counter drugs in Italy contain closte
