Iga Swiatek Drugs Ban

After the Sinner case comes news today that Swiatek has received a one-month doping ban.

It's all a bit strange as this relates to a substance she, inadvertently, took last summer. Protesting her innocence she was initially suspended from Sep 22 to October 4 and has now accepted a ban which actually lasts only until Dec 4. It was accepted by the authorities that contamination was involved and she was therefore considered to be at the lowest end of the range for 'No Significant Fault or Negligence'.

So both world number ones - Iga was top at the time - have been involved in drug controversy this year.

B ut you have to think that with lower-ranked players the news would have come out at the time - and not later. This seems to enforce the feeling that when it comes to doping the higher the players' profile the more leniently they are treated. (I write this without really knowing all the facts in either of these cases)

Leave her alone she’s lovely

I see that Halep who has had more than her fair share of doping trouble has hit out at the way she was treated compared with Iga.

OK, two different cases. But there appears to be little doubt that first Sinner and now Iga have had a much fairer crack of the whip than Simona.

Also, the Halep case went on for months and months and months, with various hearings being postponed. I have no idea whether Halep was guilty or not, although the evidence did appear fairly damning. You get the impression that if she'd been the reigning number one then the case would have been handled far more differently.