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British tennis player Tara Moore has accused tennis authorities of double standards after Jannik Sinner was cleared of wrongdoing despite failing two drugs tests.
The world no. 1 tested positive for clostebol at Indian Wells in March, with low quantities of the banned substance found in his system again after another test days later.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced on Tuesday that the Italian had been cleared to continue competing having claimed the substance entered his system after receiving massages from his physiotherapist, who had been treating his own finger injury.
Leading tennis players including Nick Kyrgios and Denis Shapovalov have questioned the seemingly quick and simple process Sinner was able to go through before clearance.
And Moore, who missed 19 months of tennis after a positive test before being cleared last year, has claimed that the case shows that “top players” are favoured.
“I guess only the top players’ images matter,” Moore wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“I guess only the independent tribunal’s opinion on the top players is taken as sound and right. Yet, they question them in my case. Just makes no sense.”
Moore tested positive for nandrolone metabolites and boldenone in May 2022, but a panel ruled last December that contaminated meat was the source of the substances.
Sinner’s clearance leaves him the top seed free to compete in the US Open from August 26 as he looks to add to his Australian Open crown.
Sinner, who lost in the semi-finals of Indian Wells, was stripped of 400 ranking points and $325,000 (£250,000) in prize money. The tribunal convened by Sport Resolutions accepted, though, that the anabolic agent clostebol entered his system via physio Giacomo Naldi.
“Whether Sinner was doping or not, this is not right,” Moore’s fellow British player Liam Broady wrote in a social media post.
“Plenty of players go through the same thing and have to wait months or years for their innocence to be declared. Not a good look.”
