Why Iga Swiatek’s doping case is being kept secret is bad for tennis

The one-month suspension of Iga Swiatek for unintentionally taking the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) amounts to picograms. World number 2 Swiatek’s positive test, recorded on August 12 and communicated to her in addition to a provisional suspension on September 12, detected 50 picograms of TMZ per milliliter of urine, what doping experts call a trace amount.

A picogram is one thousandth of a nanogram; there are one billion nanograms in a gram. Not the kind of use that would provide any advantage in a tennis match.

Combined with the fact that Swiatek had submitted her medications and supplements to independent laboratories alongside hair samples, these figures led to the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepting her explanation that she had ingested a contaminated dose of melatonin, which she had used to aid her sleep to help combat it. jet lag.

Here are some more numbers.

On September 20, fifteen days after Jessica Pegula knocked her out of the US Open and eight days after she was told she had tested positive, Swiatek announced she would skip one of the top tournaments of the year.

“Due to personal circumstances, I am forced to withdraw from the China Open in Beijing,” Swiatek said in a statement. “I’m really sorry because I had a great time playing and winning this tournament last year and I was really looking forward to being there again. I know the fans there will enjoy fantastic tennis and I’m sorry I won’t be there this time.”

The announcement came after Swiatek rightly spoke at the end of the summer about how exhausted she was after the Olympic Games in July and August, where she took the bronze medal after an intense period that included winning her fourth French Open in five years . at Wimbledon, and not winning a gold medal for which she was seen as a champion in waiting. Skipping a tournament due to ‘personal matters’ seemed to fit that narrative. Fatigue. A medical problem. Burnout. Family things.

Iga Swiatek at the Olympic Games earlier this year. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

By its broadest definition, “personal matters” includes virtually everything. That said, when someone uses this phrase, the immediate understanding generally involves a health or family issue. It is personal and usually separate from anything public or professional.

There is also an implicit boundary request in the sentence: What’s going on is my own business.

But positive doping tests and provisional suspensions from an anti-doping authority are not personal matters. These are professional matters, in a profession that is very public.

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The ITIA waits ten days before announcing a positive test, so the player has the right to appeal the provisional suspension. If the player decides to appeal, the agency keeps its findings secret, and the player usually does so. The process of testing, litigation and judgment then takes place behind closed doors. In Swiatek’s case, her successful appeal allowed her to play the WTA Tour Finals and the Billie Jean King Cup Finals while that process was underway.

The statement from Swiatek’s team said she was “unable to inform the public about the ongoing investigation.” The ITIA’s code subjects its officers, employees and associates to confidentiality, but nothing explicitly prohibits a player who has tested positive and is serving a provisional suspension during an appeal from explaining what is going on.

So if you feel like you’ve been misled in recent months, join the club. “Personal Matter” does not describe a positive drug test and the process that followed, and in the long run, that less-than-transparent explanation for her absence could ultimately do more harm to Swiatek than the positive test for inadvertently administering a drug test. a performance-enhancing drug that likely had no effect on her performance.

Whose decision was it to frame this as a ‘personal matter’? Was there any consideration given to saying something different?

On Friday, Paula Wolecka, a spokesperson for Swiatek, said in an email that Swiatek had experienced great distress because she knew she was innocent of intentional doping and had taken contaminated drugs.

“The decisions were made with the best intentions at every stage of the process, step by step, based on the team’s current knowledge and the circumstances,” Wolecka wrote.

“Iga has made every effort to act fairly, follow the ITIA procedures and requirements and, after the decision was officially published by the ITIA, provide everyone with as much detail about the process as possible in order to be fully transparent. Being a good person with a strong core of values ​​is crucial to her and she does her best to act in line with that, both on and off the field.”

In a video statement Thursday, Swiatek said: “This whole thing will definitely stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Both the one-month suspension for Swiatek and the decision not to suspend Jannik Sinner due to his two positive tests for clostebol, an anabolic steroid, were carried out according to the ITIA protocol. Both cases have also revealed deep wells of distrust and anger within tennis, among fans and players alike, who were confused about players being allowed to play while under investigation. Everything was done by the book. The book seems to need a rewrite.

There are also plenty of hardline anti-doping officials who believe science has gotten ahead of the rules. Swiatek tested negative several times before the positive test and again afterward. That would indicate she was not in the middle of a doping cycle, and TMZ’s traces also suggested accidental use.

Iga Swiatek will play in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on November 3. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)

So maybe provisional suspensions aren’t the way to go if the science says the athlete didn’t receive any benefit.

During a conference call with reporters Thursday, ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse said the rules are fair to the players. “We have been absolutely transparent once they reached an outcome,” Moorhouse said.

But is that transparent enough?

It’s true that players may not see much incentive to go public during a period of uncertainty; that as soon as they announce that they have tested positive for a banned substance and that they are under investigation, everyone will label them as cheaters. Some would undoubtedly do so.

But a player will ultimately have to answer for the positive test. Would Swiatek, the ITIA and tennis have been better off if they had collectively clarified this in September, rather than announcing it as done and dusted now, after Swiatek offered other explanations for her absence from competitive tennis last fall?

It’s hard not to think so.

Now she has both tested positive and has chosen not to be “absolutely transparent” for two months. That’s not a very good combination.

It is impossible to consider the Swiatek case without comparing it to that of Sinner, the men’s world No. 1.

Sinner tested positive for clostebol on March 10 this year at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, and again on March 18, out of competition. The independent tribunals of the ITIA determined that the now 23-year-old Italian bore “no fault or negligence” for the positive tests and therefore did not deserve a ban. But all this only became public in mid-August at the end of the ITIA investigations and hearings.

There wasn’t much transparency either, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has since challenged the ruling and appealed to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS), arguing that Sinner’s level of culpability should be upgraded to “no significant fault or negligence,” which would earn him a ban of up to two years.

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Despite all this, Sinner never explained anything to the audience. He didn’t have to. He successfully appealed two provisional suspensions quickly enough to avoid missing tournaments. But when the ITIA announced the details of the Sinner investigation and its ruling, much of the tennis-watching public felt like people had put one over them.

That’s not good for anyone.

Swiatek repeatedly said the case was coming to an end in her video statement. Yet it is hard to believe that this is so.

When the 2025 season starts in Australia in late December, she will definitely face more questions – about the doping violation, but also about why she didn’t tell us what really kept her off the field. That includes tennis authorities, on how a system that they say works as designed can create situations where so many people feel left in the dark.

(Top photo: Robert Prange/Getty Images)