To paraphrase R.E.M., it’s the end of anti-doping as we know it.
Indeed, it’s possible that Michael Stipe is wondering how on earth tennis has managed to get itself into this mess.
Doping cases being handled less than perfectly is nothing new.
But the past week has seen a new low for a system that’s already plumbed more than a few depths.
Jannik Sinner, who is currently the best men’s tennis player on the planet, has been given a doping ban but really, his punishment amounts to little more than an enforced holiday at the most convenient time of the season possible for him.
I’d like to say he couldn’t have hand-picked it any better, but he did, it seems, hand-pick it.
This story has been rumbling on, initially clandestinely and latterly, publicly, for almost a year.
The Italian tested positive for low levels of a metabolite of clostebol - an anabolic steroid - last spring.
Sinner stressed he was entirely innocent; his explanation for his positive test was that the steroid got into his system by way of contamination. His fitness trainer, who had bought an over-the-counter spray at an Italian pharmacy in order to treat cuts, lent it to Sinner’s physio who used the spray but failed to wash his hands before massaging Sinner.
The past eleven months since Sinner’s adverse finding have shown anti-doping at its very worst.
Initially, the 23-year-old was permitted to serve his provisional bans - which totalled a whopping four days - in secret.
Having been charged by tennis’ anti-doping body, the ITIA, with doping offences in May, it wasn’t until August - five months following Sinner’s positive test, during which he rose to number one in the rankings - that his predicament was made public. His “outing” came only after an independent tribunal ruled that Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” for the positive tests and he was free to continue on tour as normal.
The Italian vowed to put the incident behind him until, that is, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), announced it was filing an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) seeking a ban of one to two years as, in WADA’s opinion, the no-fault ruling was incorrect.
Such is the frustratingly slow timescale of CAS cases, it seemed that Sinner would have this weight to bear for months before a resolution was reached.
But a resolution that few realised was on the table has now, in fact, been reached.
Or rather than calling it a resolution, perhaps we should call it, as WADA and Sinner themselves have, a “settlement”.
Who knew that settlements were even a thing when it came to bans for doping?
Turns out they very much are if you’re the best men’s tennis player in the world and have some very good, very expensive lawyers. If this is the case, you can ensure the ban causes only minimal disruption to your season.
Anti-doping should, in the main, be a relatively black-and-white issue. You don’t take drugs, you’ll be fine. But take drugs, and you’ll be kicked out of sport, at least temporarily.
Of course there are grey areas, and Sinner’s case falls slap bang in the middle of the grey area.
It’s widely accepted that Sinner, despite his positive tests, isn’t a flagrant doper.
His explanation of how the trace of clostebol came to be in his system is generally accepted to be the truth - although it should be noted that there are other far less innocent explanations that could potentially have caused the substance to be in Sinner’s system - and so few believe that a lengthy ban would be anything other than unduly harsh.
But, and there’s no way around this, there remains a strict liability rule within sport. Even if someone else is at fault, and this seems to be the case with Sinner’s physio, each individual athlete is responsible for what’s in their system.
And so, with this rule in mind, it seems right that Sinner has been given a ban of some sorts, and it also seems right that his ban lasts only a few months.
So far, so good.
It’s the “settlement” between WADA and Sinner that’s quite so disturbing, though.
Rather than allowing this case to go to CAS in April as was scheduled, Sinner and WADA settled on this three month ban, which was back-dated to the 9th of February, making the Italian eligible to return to competitive tennis at the start of May.
A May return renders him eligible for the French Open, as well as Wimbledon, both of which would almost certainly have fallen within his suspension period had he let his case go to trial.
The ban’s timing couldn’t, coincidentally or not, have suited Sinner any better.
As Sinner’s fellow professional, Liam Broady, said earlier this week, the timing of his ban is like a footballer being banned for the summer. It’s hard to disagree.
Broady is not the only one of Sinner’s fellow players to be critical of the conclusion of this case.
Three-time grand slam champion, Stan Wawrinka was even more scathing, writing on social media that he doesn’t “believe in a clean sport anymore,” with Nick Kyrgios calling it a “sad day” for tennis.
Looking at Sinner’s case objectively, a three-month ban is probably about right.
But there’s far more to this case than purely this outcome because not only does the right thing need to be done, the right thing needs to be seen to be done.
And this has most certainly not happened - the optics of this case could not be worse.
The word “settlement” is deeply disturbing - since when did a guilty athlete have a say in their punishment?
This is the absolute antithesis of what anti-doping should be.
Sport is, or should be, a meritocracy. Sinner’s case shows it’s anything but.
Expensive lawyers and the standing as one of the world’s best go, it seems, a long way.
No wonder, then, that so many feel quite so despondent about how this case has progressed and, ultimately ended.
In a world in which fewer and fewer people have any faith that they’re watching clean athletes, Sinner’s case has caused further erosion of this trust.
