Djokovic slams doping case handling for Sinner and Swiatek

Serb legend Novak Djokovic said Sunday Jannik Sinner benefitted from favouritism in being cleared of doping after testing positive twice for banned steroid clostebol at Indian Wells earlier this year, CE Report quotes ANSA.

The record 24-time slam winner said Iga Swiatek had also got favourable treatment in only getting a month's ban for her doping case.

Djokovic, 37, said however that he had known Sinner "since he was a young lad and I know he would never have done anything like this deliberately", referring to the inadvertent contamination by a cream used by his now sacked physio.

The Serb, rated the greatest ever by many, said world number one, US Open and Australian Open champ Sinner had also suffered from a "lack of transparency" over doping cases.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has appealed to world sports' ultimate tribunal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, to overturn the 23-year-old South Tyrolean's acquittal and hand him a two-year ban for using clostebol.

Sinner, who has ignited a tennis boom in Italy, had beaten the great Serb in all their recent meetings.