Former coach of America’s legendary tennis star Andre Agassi, Brad Gilbert, is hoping that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will not ruin the emerging rivalry between Spain’s young sensation Carlos Alcaraz and Italy’s Jannik Sinner. Both are already regarded as the two players currently playing in men’s tennis in the singles category, along with Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.
Alcaraz and Sinner played in a feisty final of the China Cup. The young Spaniard came out on top after a battle that lasted more than three hours, winning 6-7, 6-4, 7-6. It was the third time he had defeated the Italian tennis star this season. On the other hand, Sinner, who is having a fabulous season on the court, lost his first final.
After the match, the former of Agassi, Andy Murray, and most recently Coco Gauff, Gilbert, in a post on his official account on the social media platform X — previously known as Twitter — was full of praise for the emerging rivalry. The 63-year-old further went on to take a dig at WADA for appealing against Sinner’s doping verdict and expressed optimism that both players will be able to entertain the tennis fans for a good part of the next decade.
“After 20 years of amazing matches from the big 3 didn’t think it was possible this soon to have another amazing rivalry, Escape from Alcaraz vs Sin City is the gold standard in tennis here’s to the next 10 years of these 2 with tons of great matches, hopefully Wada doesn’t mess it up,” he wrote.
Recently, WADA announced that they have appealed against the verdict of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided not to ban the Italian tennis star after accepting the player’s counsel’s response, which claimed that the banned substance was present in minimal quantity in the player’s sample because a member of the coaching staff had given the player a cream to treat an injury.