Aussie tennis star Nick Kyrgios has taken aim once again after former world No. 1 women’s star Iga Swiatek was handed a one month ban after testing positive for a banned substance.
Swiatek, who is currently world No. 2 after losing the top spot in October, was revealed to have been handed a one-month ban after failing a doping test during an out-of-competition sample in August 2024.
The 23-year-old Polish star was ranked world No. 1 at the time.
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Swiatek tested positive for heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ), the same drug that’s at the centre of the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers in 2021.
However, the ITIA accepted she had consumed a banned substance through “the contamination of a regulated non-prescription medication (melatonin), manufactured and sold in Poland that the player had been taking for jet lag and sleep issues”, and Swiatek will be free to compete at the Australian Open in January.
Reigning French Open champion Swiatek, who has five Grand Slam singles titles — four at Roland Garros and the 2022 US Open — accepted the suspension.
Swiatek was provisionally suspended from September 22 until October 4, missing three tournaments, which counts towards the sanction, leaving eight days remaining.
She will also forfeit prize money from the Cincinnati Open, the tournament directly following the test, where she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
That constitutes a $158,944 financial hit — chump change considering she’s made $8,550,693 in prizemoney this year.
Swiatek called it “the hardest experience” she’s ever faced.
“I’m finally allowed … so I instantly want to share with you something that became the worst experience of my life,” an emotional Swiatek said in a post on social media.
“In the last two-and-a-half months I was subject to strict ITIA proceedings, which confirmed my innocence.
“The only positive doping test in my career, showing unbelievably low level of a banned substance I’ve never heard about before, put everything I’ve worked so hard for my entire life into question.
“Both me and my team had to deal with tremendous stress and anxiety. Now everything has been carefully explained, and with a clean slate I can go back to what I love most.”
But the drama has once again not passed the smell test for Aussie Kyrgios, who took aim once again.
Having gone hard at men’s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner earlier in the year, Kyrgios hit out at the Swiatek drama in a series of tweets.
Kyrgios kicked off by quote tweeting Zimbabwean tennis player and world No. 337 Benjamin Lock, who wrote: “1 month ban. It’s not even April fools day. Don’t play with us like that. Two number 1s in the world failing drug tests in the same year is wild.”
Kyrgios added: “Our sport is cooked.”
Tennis blogger Pavvy G then added: “They think we are all stupid,” to which Kyrgios added: “No they both just didn’t know,” followed by a laugh crying emoji.
Replying to a post asking for a “bold prediction for the 2025 tennis season”, Kyrgios wrote: “That our world number 1’s won’t fail drug tests”.
Social media commentator Anthony Scalise then hit back at Kyrgios, writing: “Italians do it better. Don’t be jealous that he is better than you.”
Kyrgios replied: “What this gotta do with the fact he failed the drug tests penguin”.
Kyrgios continued his social media blitz with a few more retweets and replies, writing: “The excuse that we can all use is that we didn’t know. Simply didn’t know. Professionals at the highest level of sport can now just say ‘we didn’t know’.”
Earlier in the year, Kyrgios was scathing when it was revealed that Sinner had tested positive to low levels of the banned substance clostebol.
The amount in question was less than a billionth of a gram.
Sinner’s maintained his innocence while he was investigated, arguing the substance, which is sold over the counter in Italy, got into his system via his physiotherapist.
Sinner’s legal team argued that the contamination came through his physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, who used a clostebol-containing over-the-counter spray called Trofodermi.
The spray was purchased by Sinner’s fitness trainer, Umberto Ferrara, in Italy.
During the Indian Wells tournament, Naldi cut his finger on a scalpel and used the spray for a week while continuing to massage Sinner without gloves. Sinner, who often has small cuts and sores, was found to have been contaminated this way.
But the argument didn’t cut mustard with Kyrgios, who savaged Sinner online, tweeting: “Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance … you should be gone for two years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream …. Yeah nice.”
Kyrgios explained himself further in ESPN commentary during the US Open, arguing he’d seen plenty more players such as Simona Halep and Jenson Brooksby wiped out of the sport over similar incidences.
Brooksby was banned for 18 months after missing three drug tests in the span of a year.
Halep had a similar incident where she had denied taking the banned substance roxadustat, but was banned for four years in October 2022, which was later reduced to nine month after and appeal to the Court of Arbitration for sport.
Halep, a former Wimbledon and French Open champion, hit out the difference in treatment between her and Swiatek.
“I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment?” former world No. 1 Halep said in a post on Instagram on Thursday. “I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer.
“It can only be bad will from the ITIA, the organisation that has done absolutely everything to destroy me despite the evidence … It was painful, it is painful and maybe the injustice that was done to me will always be painful.”
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