Nick Kyrgios may have been the most outspoken critic of world No 1 Jannik Sinner since he failed two drug tests last March, but Novak Djokovic’s high-profile contribution to this story confirmed he not alone in raising concerns about the issue of doping in tennis.

Kyrgios described Sinner and Iga Swiatek’s positive doping tests as “disgusting” as he spoke to the media ahead of his return to action after a long injury lay-off.

The combative Australian has been a vociferous critic of Sinner since he escaped a ban following a positive doping test after an anabolic steroid was found to be in his system.

“I have to be outspoken about it because I don’t think there’s enough people that are speaking about it. I think people are trying to sweep it under the rug.

“I just think that it’s been handled horrifically in our sport. Two world No 1’s both getting done for doping is disgusting for our sport. It’s a horrible look.

“The tennis integrity right now – and everyone knows it, but no one wants to speak about it – it’s awful. It’s actually awful. And it’s not OK.

“I know that people don’t like when I just speak out about things, be honest about things.

“For a kid that grew up playing tennis, I enjoyed the competition, I enjoyed playing. I can get emotional, I can throw a racquet, but that’s nothing compared to cheating and taking performance-enhancing drug performance-enhancing drugs. That’s ridiculous in my opinion.

“I’m not going to shut up about it anyway. Like, yeah. Sorry, I probably went a bit too long. That’s just my honest thoughts.”

Djokovic was asked about those bold comments as he spoke to the media in Brisbane and while he offered up more thoughtful comments, it was clear that he broadly agreed with Kyrgios, who he is playing doubles alongside in the ATP Tour event this week.

“We live in a world where everyone has the right to express themselves, especially on social media,” said Djokovic.

“Nick has spoken a lot about the whole Jannik doping case, and he’s right about the transparency and the inconsistency of the protocols and the comparisons between the various cases.

“We have seen many players in the past, and also currently, who have been suspended for not even having undergone anti-doping tests and for not having communicated their whereabouts, and some lower-ranked players who have been waiting for their cases to be resolved for more than a year.”

He went on address the Sinner case directly as he added: “We’ve been kept in the dark with Jannik’s case. I don’t question whether the prohibited substance was taken intentionally or not.

“I believe in clean sport, I believe that the player will do everything possible to play fair.

“I’ve known Jannik since he was very young, so he doesn’t seem like the type of person who would do something like that, but I felt really frustrated, like most other players, to see that we were kept in the dark for five months after he received that news. It’s not a good image for our sport.”

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Predictably, Djokovic was a little more cautious with his comments than Kyrgios, but the Serbian’s gravitas in the sport ensures that his contribution to the debate around the Sinner case will hit home.

Sinner is widely expected to face a ban from tennis at some point in 2025 once WADA’s appeal against the lack of punishment handed out to him by the ITIA is heard.

The Sinner and Swiatek cases have had a negative impact on the credibility of the anti-doping programme in tennis, with the ITIA coming under fire for the way they have handled those two high-profile cases.

So it was refreshing to hear directly from ITIA’s CEO Karen Moorhouse in an exclusive Tennis365 interview, as she outlined the approach in both the Sinner and Swiatek cases.

“There is a strict liability principle that an athlete is responsible for what is in their body, so once you get a positive test, it’s up to the athlete to explain why,” Moorhouse told Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.

“Under the WADA code, all sports have an obligation to impose a provisional suspension when you have a positive test on an unspecified substance.

“After that, they can use discretion on whether they announce provisional suspensions or not and there is a range of approaches taken.

“In athletics, they pretty much announce provisional suspension on day one. A lot of team sports don’t announce provisional suspension at all.

“Tennis took the decision that we don’t announce provisional suspension for at least 10 days. This allows time to test the B sample and it gives a player time to challenge the provisional suspension. If that appeal is successful and is made within 10 days, we don’t announce the provisional suspension.

“With Swiatek and Sinner, they appealed those provisional suspensions within ten days, they were successful and under our rules, we don’t announce anything at that point. While those rules are in place in tennis, our job is to follow those rules, which we did in both cases.

“It’s the same rules and the same processes for every player. All cases are different and each case turns on individual facts.

“Cases can also be quite complex, so it isn’t right to look at two headlines and draw comparisons between two cases as the detail is always the key part.

“That was the tribunal deciding on the objective fault she had and the subjective fault she should have. So what should she have done in relation to the product that was found to be contaminated?

“In relation to Swiatek, the contaminated product was a medication. So it was not unreasonable for a player to assume that a regulated medication would contain what it says on the ingredients.

“Therefore, the level of fault she could accept was at the lowest level as there was very little more she could have done reasonably to mitigate the risk of that product being contaminated.”

This story looks certain to be a dominant narrative in the first half of the 2025 tennis season, with Sinner’s WADA hearing certain to have a huge impact on the sport whichever way the verdict goes.