Early on during his stay in the California desert a year ago, Giacomo Naldi allegedly reached into his treatment bag one morning and accidentally brushed his left finger across the blade of a scalpel used to remove calluses, immediately drawing blood. Two days later, after Naldi had removed the bandage from his finger, his colleague Umberto Ferrara suggested he use the over-the-counter ointment Trofodermin to treat his healing wound.
Naldi and Ferrara were in Indian Wells as Jannik Sinner’s physio and fitness trainer respectively. According to Sinner and his team, as Naldi began to use the ointment to treat his wound while also conducting his daily treatment on Sinner without gloves and Sinner undertook two doping tests in the subsequent two weeks, these events put into motion the most high-profile anti-doping case in tennis history as he twice tested positive.
This week at Indian Wells, the first ATP Masters 1000 event of the year, marks the first significant ATP tournament since Sinner was handed a three-month ban in February after a case resolution agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). Sinner will miss four Masters 1000 events: Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid.
Sinner’s suspension leaves a massive hole in the sport, particularly this month with the Miami Open to follow. He had been the dominant force on hard courts, compiling an 83-6 record dating back to November 2023 and winning the past three hard-court grand slam titles, with two Australian Opens and one US Open.
The 96 players in the Indian Wells draw are not thinking about Sinner as they try to work each day towardstheir goals. Many will, however, be considering the opportunity before them as they try to make their mark in the absence of the best player in the world.
This is, say, a clear opportunity for the defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz, to show that he is ready to perform with the type of consistency Sinner has demonstrated since the beginning of last year. While he was steamrollered in the Australian Open final and left Melbourne feeling further away from the Italian than ever, the coming months are a chance for the No 2, Alexander Zverev, to close the gap in the rankings.
Novak Djokovic, who is joined at Indian Wells by Andy Murray and once again has been handed a tough draw by landing in Alcaraz’s quarter, has an even better chance to rebuild his ranking over the next few months and ensure he cannot be drawn against Sinner or Alcaraz before the semi-finals of any other grand slam tournaments. For the others, such as improving younger players Jack Draper and Ben Shelton, there will be more space in the draws for deeper runs at the Masters 1000 events.
Even though Sinner is banned for an anti-doping rule violation, he will simultaneously continue to build on his legacy. Since he has a massive lead over Zverev and Alcaraz at No 1 and he is unlikely to lose it until his return, Sinner could add an additional 12 weeks to his total time spent at the top spot, which would lift him above Gustavo Kuerten, Andy Murray and Ilie Nastase to No 13 on the all-time list.
One of the few points of agreement among the countless perspectives Sinner’s anti-doping case has generated is that it has been incredibly damaging for the game, generating greater suspicion of the sport itself and the processes of the governing bodies that enforce anti-doping code.
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Even for those who found logic in the first-instance ruling in 2024, which handed Sinner no ban at all, Wada’s handling of the case was poor. None of the facts of the case have changed since Wada opted to appeal against the first ruling but there is such a large gap between its initial pursuit of a one- to two-year ban and the subsequent three-month suspension they ultimately offered Sinner. He will return in time for the Italian Open, the biggest tournament in his country. The convenience of his date of return has made for awful optics.
Over the past year, Sinner has maintained he has done nothing wrong. Last week, less than two weeks after his ban had commenced, he appeared at a Gucci fashion show, one of his sponsors, sitting front row next to Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue. Whether intentional or not, this seemed like a message. He is unlikely to spend his next months locked away at home and sequestered from the world. As the rest of the tour continues to battle on-court around the world, during his ban from competition, Sinner may well appear elsewhere.
