"Who knows, right?”: Sabalenka and Kyrgios weigh in as Sinner doping-ban debate resurfaces

Piers Morgan’s interview featuring Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka took a sharp turn when he introduced a clip from Novak Djokovic’s earlier conversation with him. The episode, filmed to promote their light-hearted “Battle of the Sexes” event, shifted into more serious territory as Morgan framed the tension around Jannik Sinner’s situation, prompting both players to address the underlying controversy directly.

Before asking them anything, Morgan rolled the extended remark Djokovic had made about unequal treatment in tennis. “That cloud will follow him as the cloud of COVID will follow me for the rest of his or my career in this,” Nole said weeks ago on the same program, Piers Morgan Uncensored. “You could hear so many other players, who had similar situations coming out in the media and complaining that it was a preferable treatment. I think that was inarguable.”

Morgan used Djokovic’s comments to contextualise the specific scrutiny surrounding Sinner in recent weeks, explaining that multiple voices across tennis had compared the cases despite differing details and timelines. The host argued that the debate had grown beyond just the sport and wanted to know if Kyrgios and Sabalenka considered the situation was being handled fairly.

“Well, we're not sure what actually going on there. I believe in clean sport, and I also believe that everyone have to be treated the same,” commented Sabalenka. “But at the same time, I don't believe that there was something in there, to be honest. Me, I'm really trying to be careful with everything and overprotecting myself after a couple of cases, because you can eat something in the restaurant and then you test positive.”

“I agree that everyone have to be… I agree that everyone have to be treated the same,” the 4-time major champion added. “There was a similar case with Iga when they just counted her weeks off somehow, like randomly. They're like, ‘okay, we count the’… was it like in the China swing? And then you can play the finals and then we take away a couple weeks from the next season.”

Piers Morgan—with his usual sharpness—continued by asking Sabalenka: “Let me make it simpler. Do you think if he’d been number 600 in the world, he would have got a three-month ban?”

However, Sabalenka resisted giving a blunt answer. “Well, if, if, if… who knows, right?... I mean, it’s just if… you know?... We don’t know,” concluded the Belarusian.

One person who has frequently held heated opinions against Sinner is Nick Kyrgios, perhaps the most critical voice regarding the Italian's case from the very beginning.

“You always see my stance on it and I don’t think like talking about it now is… I think that the key thing Novak said, was that whether it was there or whether it wasn’t there, whether it was meant to be there or not, he's still responsible,” assured the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up. “And I think just the way the case was handled as a whole was very… it wasn’t a good look for the sport. I mean, he was our number one tennis player in the world.”

“But at the same time, look, the way he bounced back from it too is amazing,” Kyrgios added. “As much as me and Jannik Sinner have differences, I think the way he took the ban, took the time away from the sport, then came back and pretty much nearly won Rome… or I don’t know, I think he lost to Alcaraz in the final*.”

“He did, you know, he took his time off and he came back and he became better. And there’s no doubt that he’s going to be one of the greatest players of all time.”