Nick Kyrgios blasts ‘ridiculous’ Jannik Sinner drugs ban decision and calls for suspension | Tennis | Sport

Nick Kyrgios has labelled the decision to not hand Jannik Sinner a drugs ban as ‘ridiculous’, with the Australian adamant his tennis counterpart should be suspended for two years.

News that Sinner escaped a ban broke earlier today, with a tribunal finding he was ‘not at fault or negligent’ in relation to a failed test from earlier this year.

Sinner’s camp argued the now world No.1 had been contaminated after receiving a bare-handed massage from his physiotherapist.

But that hasn’t stopped the ever-vocal Kyrgios from sharing his thoughts on the matter.

Taking to social media, the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up said: “Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance… you should be gone for 2 years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream…”

Before finishing up with: “Yeah nice,” and a sarcastic eye-rolling emoji.

The fiery outburst sparked a response from one X user, with @Riccardo__07 replying: “His performances were NOT enhanced, the amount of substance is minimal, it wouldn’t even enhance the peformance of a little animal.

“We can speak if the decision is fair or not looking at previous sentences, but scientifically we can’t have any doubt about performance alterations.”

To which Kyrgios hit back with: “Then why did they take prize money and points from Indian wells? So he did something wrong or he didn’t? Because they did say he failed two tests.”

An independent commission found the size of the banned trace – an anabolic steroid named Clostebol -was less than a billionth of a gram.

And because it was so small, the substance wasn’t deemed to have aided his performance when found in a urine sample at the Indian Wells Open earlier this year.

However, the Italian, as pointed out by Kyrgios, has still lost the ranking points and prize money from his run to the semi-finals at Indian Wells.

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