Novak Djokovic doesn't mince words when it comes to his thoughts on Jannik Sinner's doping scandal. More than a year after the 2025 Vienna Open winner tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug Clostebol and subsequently accepted a three-month ban from the sport, his fellow tennis player has reacted to the bewildering chain of events.
For Djokovic, the controversy felt akin to his own drama in 2022, when he was deported from Australia for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. "That cloud will follow him, just as the cloud of COVID followed me, for the rest of his—or my—career," he explained during a Nov. 11 appearance on Uncensored with Piers Morgan. "It was a major incident, and over time it will fade, but I don't think it will disappear entirely. There will always be a certain group of people who will try to bring it up."
While Djokovic maintained that the 24-year-old was "very genuine" whenever they crossed paths, he admitted that Sinner's doping scandal "had so many red flags." When Morgan suggested that a player of lower rank would've been banned for life from tennis, Djokovic interjected, "Exactly." (Sinner only received a three-month ban between February and May of this year, outside of peak tennis competition season.)
"The lack of transparency, the inconsistency, the convenience of the ban coming between the Slams so he doesn't miss out, it was so odd," he continued. "I really don't like how the case was handled. You could hear many players—both male and female—who had similar situations coming out in the media and complaining that it was a preferable treatment."
The 38-year-old noted that while he was certain the four-time Grand Slam winner "didn't do it on purpose," he is "of course" responsible for testing positive. "Those are the rules," Djokovic added. "When you see someone do something very similar and is banned for years, and then he's banned provisionally for three months or whatever it was, it's just not right."
Nevertheless, the Serbian player had no problem praising Sinner's performance in the last few months. "I have a sense of empathy and compassion for how he's handled the storm in the media that keeps coming back every once in a while," he said. "He's handled that really well. In the midst of all that, he's still dominating, still playing incredibly, winning slams."
E! News has reached out to reps for Sinner regarding Djokovic's comments but has not yet heard back. After agreeing to his three-month ban, Sinner indicated he wanted to move forward in a statement. "I will now put this challenging and deeply unfortunate period behind me," Sinner wrote in an August 2024 Instagram post. "I will continue to do everything I can to ensure I continue to comply with the ITIA's anti-doping program and I have a team around me that are meticulous in their own compliance."
