'Our sport is cooked': Nick Kyrgios blasts handling of Swiatek doping case

Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios has questioned how former world No. 1 women's star Iga Swiatek was only handed a one month ban after testing positive for a banned substance.

It emerged on Friday that Swiatek, who is currently world No. 2 after losing the top spot in October, failed a doping test during an out-of-competition sample in August 2024.

The 23-year-old Polish star was ranked world No. 1 at the time.

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The ITIA accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional and was caused by the contamination of a non-prescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues with jet lag and sleeping.

Swiatek was provisionally suspended from September 22 until October 4, missing three tournaments, which counts towards the sanction, leaving eight days remaining.

Kyrgios, was outspoken when men's world No.1 Jannik Sinner also failed a drug test earlier in the year and was again sceptical about the way tennis authorities handled the issue.

He posted a tweet from Zimbabwean tennis player and world No. 337 Benjamin Lock, who wrote:

"1 month ban. It's not even April fools day. Don't play with us like that. Two number 1s in the world failing drug tests in the same year is wild."

Kyrgios added: "Our sport is cooked.

"The excuse that we can all use is that we didn't know. Simply didn't know. Professionals at the highest level of sport can now just say 'we didn't know'."

When it was revealed that Sinner also failed doping tests during the year, Kyrgios was just as unforgiving.

Sinner maintained his innocence, arguing the substance, which is sold over the counter in Italy, got into his system via his physiotherapist.

"Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance … you should be gone for two years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream …. Yeah nice."

During his commentary duties at the US Open, Kyrgios said players such as Simona Halep and Jenson Brooksby were wiped out of the sport over similar indiscretions.

Halep, the former Wimbledon and French Open champion tennis player, also expressed dismay at the way Swiatek's doping case was handled compared to her own.

Halep, a 33-year-old Romanian who initially received a four-year ban for doping, said there had been severe differences in how their cases were treated by tennis authorities.

“I sit and try to understand but it is really impossible for me to understand something like this," Halep posted Friday on her Instagram account. “I sit and wonder, ‘Why such a big difference in treatment and judgment?’

"I can’t find, and I don’t think there can be, a logical answer. It can only be bad will on the part of ITIA, the organisation that did absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence."

Halep, who won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, received a four-year suspension after testing positive for the banned drug Roxadustat at the 2022 U.S. Open.

Her suspension was reduced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to nine months after CAS accepted her explanation of a contaminated supplement. But she missed 1 1/2 years of playing.

“I have always believed in good, I have believed in the fairness of this sport, I have believed in kindness," Halep wrote on Instagram. “The injustice that was done to me was painful, is painful and maybe will always be painful. How is it possible that in identical cases that happened at about the same time (of the season), ITIA has completely different approaches, to my detriment?”

Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov, ranked No. 56, posted a sarcastic-sounding “ 1 month ban eh ” on his page.

Sinner tested positive twice for an anabolic steroid in March but was not banned in an ITIA decision because the agency determined he was not to blame.

It led to claims by some observers of a two-tier system, with critics arguing it afforded Sinner protection because of his status as a leading player.

Earlier this month, ATP Tour chairman Andrea Gaudenzi acknowledged there “ could have been better communication ” in explaining the rules involved in Sinner’s doping case, but refuted allegations of double standards.

The decision to clear Sinner of wrongdoing, however, was appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in September.

WADA is seeking a ban of one to two years and the Switzerland-based CAS is expected to make a final ruling on the case in 2025.