French tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou came into the spotlight earlier this year after former World No.1 Simona Halep’s ban was reduced from 4 years to 9 months. Halep was accused of two doping violations and she claimed that the Frenchman was responsible for administering her a drug without knowing that it was a banned substance in tennis. With Jannik Sinner’s recent doping controversy making headlines, Mouratoglou’s old interview on players getting banned on doping, has gone viral.
Addressing the issue of increasing positive results of doping tests, Mouratoglou claimed (as per a Tennis Legend post) that players were ‘victims’ and not guilty. Clarifying that the results are being caused by contamination, he somewhat gave a clean chit to ‘almost all athletes’ who have been testing positive for drug abuse. He was quoted as saying:
“I know it from experience because I have a female player who was in this situation. They are innocent people, almost all of them.
“They end up being acquitted every time because they are innocent. These people are victims. Today, there is a lot of contamination.
“It’s a product that is in your body which should not be in. In infinitely small quantities, but so small that it obviously has no effect. Which are in fact either contaminations through intermediaries.”
Mouratoglou further tried to explain the contamination process with the help of an example and added:
“For example, I am your physiotherapist, I take medications for my health which I need because I have a health issue.
“But this product is on the list of prohibited products and I massage you every day because I am your physiotherapist, with both hands.
“You will have quantities ridiculously small from this product but when you’re tested, you tested positive. “
Patrick Mouratoglou dans une interview pour @legendmediafr il y a quelques jours.
Visionnaire. Il a exactement raconté le cas de Jannik Sinner.pic.twitter.com/BHPPloVZZC
— Tennis Legend (@TennisLegende) August 21, 2024
Patrick Mouratoglou’s words could not resonate more with what happened to Jannik Sinner. Sinner was massaged once with a cream containing a banned substance, Clostebol. However, in Italy, the steroid is available over the counter easily in a drug store.
Sinner’s fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara approved of using the cream on him, which was applied by the World No.1’s physio, Giacomo Naldi. Although Sinner was given the clean chit by ITIA, the fallout from the saga has already been huge. Sinner has sacked both of them ahead of the US Open 2024.
While one could easily believe that Sinner was let off the hook easily and the same wasn’t the case with Halep because of the similarities in their cases, they are quite different in nature.
Sinner vs Halep doping case
While Sinner tested positive for drug abuse in two doping tests successively, Halep had two different violation charges against her. Clostebol was found in Sinner’s body during a random doping test before the Round of 32 match and after his semi-final in Indian Wells. This called for an immediate provisional suspension which the Italian immediately challenged and successfully evaded.
On the other hand, Halep was first accused of substance abuse when Roxadustat was found in her body. This was followed by another doping violation due to irregularities in her Athlete Biological Passport, the first ever in the history of the sport. The Romanian, too, immediately appealed to CAS but couldn’t evade the provisional ban of 4 years, which was later reduced to nine months.
Even though the Italian has been declared innocent of any wrongdoings, this could be one allegation he might not be able to make many forget, anytime soon. The current World No.1 might face some questions over his integrity for a period of time. At the moment, he is focused on winning the US Open 2024.
