"And some who are not very clean": Toni Nadal defends Jannik Sinner after receiving criticism for getting favoured treatment from WADA

Uncle of the former world number one Rafael Nadal, Toni Nadal, has defended Italy’s Jannik Sinner after having an agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for three-month suspension.

The 23-year-old, who is widely regarded as the best player currently playing in men’s tennis in the singles category, has been in the news for the wrong reasons after he tested positive for the banned substance clostebol in two doping tests in March last year. Sinner, miraculously managed to escape any ban as The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) declared him innocent following a detailed hearing where his counsel claimed that the substance was available in the player’s sample because one member of the coaching staff had received a cream for the treatment of an injury.

WADA appealed against the ITIA’s verdict in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and demanded a two-year ban for the three-time Grand Slam winner. However, the issue finally came to a conclusion on Saturday last week as WADA announced that they had reached an agreement with Sinner, which will result in the player remaining out of action for three months. Ever since that agreement was announced, reigning world number one Sinner has been under severe criticism from a lot of current tennis players who accused him of receiving favoured treatment. However, Toni, who is the uncle of former world number one Rafael, has recently spoken to the Spanish daily Marca, where he defended Sinner.

"I've already said it many times and explained it, I'm against the sanction,” he said. “I know Sinner personally and he had no intention of committing a crime and you can't treat a person like that for a mistake that happened by chance. It can't be that you have that desire to supervise and sanction. You have to sanction someone who intentionally does things wrong and is looking for their own benefit. And I know that's not the case with Sinner. I know that he didn't benefit from what they found. So why do you want to sanction him? It's true that they say that others who aren't number 1 were sanctioned because they did wrong before. I'm surprised that different players have positioned themselves against it, even some at the highest level and some who are not very clean."