Doping clouds tennis talk at the Australian Open with Sinner and Swiatek facing scrutiny

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — It is a topic that shadowed tennis in 2024 and is still a talking point as the 2025 Grand Slam season opens at the Australian Open on Sunday (Saturday EST): doping and the cases involving Jannik Sinner — which is still not resolved — and Iga Swiatek.

Both spent much of last year at No. 1, and Sinner still will hold that spot in the ATP rankings when he steps on court at Melbourne Park to begin the defense of his championship, one of two major trophies he won last year.

Swiatek, a five-time Slam champ and the woman leading the WTA rankings most of the past three seasons, is No. 2 behind Aryna Sabalenka, who will be chasing her third consecutive title in Australia.

“Obviously, there are going to be some negative comments," Swiatek said. "You're not going to avoid that.”

Most players prefer to remain silent when asked about the cases. But there are those who have been happy to weigh in, including 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic, raising questions about whether Sinner and Swiatek were treated the same as other players facing similar circumstances and why their situations were kept under wraps for months.

“I sit and wonder, ‘Why such a big difference in treatment and judgment?’” was two-time major champion Simona Halep's reaction to Swiatek's punishment. “I can’t find, and I don’t think there can be, a logical answer."

Halep initially was banned for four years after testing positive for the banned drug Roxadustat at the 2022 U.S. Open, then had that penalty reduced to nine months on appeal — although she already had been off the tour longer than that. She was supposed to compete at Melbourne Park for the first time in three years but withdrew from qualifying because of knee and shoulder pain.

No one has been louder about the subject lately than Nick Kyrgios, the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up who missed nearly all of the past two seasons because of injuries. He has been commenting regularly, in real life and online, even taking a jab (that he said was in jest) at Cruz Hewitt after the 16-year-old son of Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton posted a photo with Sinner from a practice session.

“It’s been handled horrifically in our sport. Two world No. 1s, both getting done for doping, is disgusting for our sport," Kyrgios said at the Brisbane International, the first event of his comeback. “It’s a horrible look.”

Sinner was the dominant player in men's tennis last year, and there's little reason to think that won't continue. In 2024, he went 73-6 with eight titles, including at the U.S. Open, and led Italy to the Davis Cup. He heads into the Australian Open on a 14-match winning streak.

Hanging over it all is this: Two positive tests for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid in March were made public in August; the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) determined he shouldn't be suspended because the exposure to Clostebol was considered accidental — the result of a massage from a trainer who used the substance after cutting his own finger.

The World Anti-Doping Agency was not entirely convinced about the exoneration and thinks a ban of one to two years would be appropriate. Its appeal, lodged in September, is still pending, and a final determination is expected after the Australian Open ends.

“It’s in (my) head a little bit," Sinner said, adding that he is confident everything will go his way.

Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension in late November after testing positive for a banned heart medication known as TMZ. She failed an out-of-competition test in August, and the ITIA accepted her explanation that it was caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for jet lag and sleeping issues.

She missed three tournaments — although the real reason wasn't revealed at the time — and finished serving her punishment after the season was done.

“This whole process was pretty abstract sometimes and hard to understand,” Swiatek said, surely speaking for many observers.

Which is why, perhaps, Netherlands captain Paul Haarhuis said what he did after his team lost to Sinner's Italy in the Davis Cup finals.

“Jannik, in my personal opinion, is an unbelievably nice guy (and) great player,” Haarhuis said, “but we (might) never know what happened.”

While Sinner and Swiatek will compete in Melbourne, another player involved in a recent ITIA case won't: Max Purcell, who won men's doubles titles at the U.S. Open in September and Wimbledon in 2022 and was a two-time runner-up at the Australian Open.

Purcell didn't test positive, though. Instead, he accepted a provisional suspension for, as he described it, having “unknowingly received an IV infusion of vitamins above the allowable limit."

“I have no good words for it,” said Jordan Thompson, Purcell's doubles partner in New York last year. "It is a joke."

FILE - Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus holds the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup after defeating Zheng Qinwen of China in the women's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Poland's Iga Swiatek holds the trophy after winning the women's final of the French Open tennis tournament against Italy's Jasmine Paolini at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, France, June 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

FILE - Jannik Sinner, left, of Italy gestures as he holds the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup after defeating Daniil Medvedev, right, of Russia in the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

FILE - Poland's Iga Swiatek returns the ball against Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic during the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, Nov. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

FILE - Jannik Sinner of Italy poses with ball kids and the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup after defeating Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the men's singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Marc Rosenberg, founder and CEO of The Edge Desk in Deerfield, Illinois is getting ready to introduce a fancy ergonomic chair designed to reduce customers’ back pain and boost their productivity. He figures the most expensive one will sell for more than $1,000. But he can’t settle on a price, and he is reluctantly reducing the shipment he’s bringing to the United States from China.

There’s a reason for his caution: President Donald Trump’s ever-changing, on-again, off-again tariff war with America’s three biggest trading partners – Mexico, Canada and China.

The latest reversal came Thursday. Two days after imposing 25% taxes — tariffs — on all imports from Canada and Mexico and threatening to detonate more than $1.3 billion in annual U.S. trade in North America, Trump announced that he was suspending many of the levies on Mexico and some of them on Canada for a month. This was an expansion of his Wednesday announcement when he exempted auto imports from both countries for 30 days, and it also comes after a previous monthlong tariff reprieve for Canada and Mexico right before they were to take effect Feb. 4.

“Trump is jerking around the entire continent of North America right now, it’s stupid and it has to stop," Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said. "Today there are businesses that don’t even know if the goods they trade in are subject to Trump’s tariffs. Everything Trump does on trade seems designed to maximize chaos and uncertainty.

Rosenberg and his ergonomic furniture, meanwhile, are contending with a 20% tariff on imports from China – which Trump on Tuesday raised from 10% -- but he’s not sure where the tariff will actually land.

“The misdirection is making it very tough to plan for the year,’’ he said.

Tariffs cause economic pain in part because they’re a tax paid by importers that often gets passed along to consumers, adding to inflationary pressure. They also draw retaliation from trading partners, which can hurt all economies involved.

But import taxes can cause economic damage in another way: by complicating the decisions businesses have to make, including which suppliers to use, where to locate factories, what prices to charge. And that uncertainty can cause them to delay or cancel investments that help drive economic growth.

“It creates an enormous amount of uncertainty for multinational companies that sell products worldwide, that import from the rest of the world, that run these complex supply chains through multiple countries,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University. “The uncertainty is going to be very unsettling for businesses and ... it will hurt business investment.''

During Trump’s first-term trade battles, U.S. business investment weakened late in 2019, convincing the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate three times in second half of the year to provide some offsetting economic stimulus.

Trump 2.0 is even more unnerving to business. The first Trump administration imposed tariffs on specific targets — steel and aluminum and most goods from China — after lengthy investigations.

This time, Trump has invoked his power to declare a national emergency — ostensibly over the flow of illegal drugs and immigrants across U.S. borders — to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China with the stroke of a pen. And he’s expanded his targets. Next month, for example, he intends to impose “reciprocal tariffs’’ on countries that charge higher import taxes than America does.

“Just the threat of those tariff increases and potential retaliations are putting a brake on — on investment, on consumption decisions, on employment, hiring, all the rest of it,’’ European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said after the ECB cut interest rates Thursday to support Europe’s struggling economy.

His tariffs on Canada and Mexico effectively blow up a 2020 North American trade deal he negotiated himself five years ago. “Past trade agreements simply don’t mean much if the president can unilaterally violate them and impose tariffs with no checks at all,” said Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College.

Adding to the uncertainty: It’s unclear what Trump is trying to achieve by plastering tariffs on American trading partners. Sometimes he cites border security. Sometimes he emphasizes the revenue that tariffs can generate for the Treasury — money that can help finance his proposed tax cuts. Sometimes he points to America’s big trade deficits with most other countries.

Since the goals are cloudy, it’s hard to see what it will take to make Trump’s tariffs go away.

Not only that, but he’s imposed the tariffs erratically, creating even more confusion. For instance, his administration had to reverse itself last month after ending a customs loophole – the “de minimis” exemption -- allowing duty-free entry into the United States of packages from China and Hong Kong worth less than $800. Turned out, the U.S. postal service needed more time to figure out how to collect the duties.

Businesses are baffled. “I’ve talked to multiple companies that are saying, ‘We’re not moving forward with any investment. We need this to be settled,’” said trade lawyer Gregory Husisian at the law firm Foley & Lardner. At least in Trump’s first term “they knew what the ground rules were. Now they don’t know if we’re playing Monopoly or tic-tac-toe.’’

Respondents to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey, out Monday, voiced complaints about the tariff uncertainty. “There is no clear direction from the administration on how they will be implemented, so it’s harder to project how they will affect business,” a transportation equipment company said. A chemicals firm griped: “The tariff environment regarding products from Mexico and Canada has created uncertainty and volatility among our customers.’’

“Right now, the tariffs are putting everybody off balance because of their unpredictability and uncertainty,” said John Gulliver, president of the New England-Canada Business Council.

Taylor Samuels, the owner of Las Almas Rotas, a bar and restaurant in Dallas, depends on Mexico for much of the alcohol he offers.

The uncertainty surrounding the tariffs, including the potential impact on the price of raw materials like steel and lumber, are forcing him to review his plans to build a new restaurant.

“That construction budget is now under review and may likely be delayed ... as I recalculate costs that have already been budgeted,” he said.

Similarly, Sandya Dandamudi of GI Stone, a stone supplier in Chicago, said builders are having to rethink their plans.

“Developers of commercial projects like high-rises and hotels budget two years in advance, so they don’t account for new tariffs,” she said. “Those budgets will be blown.’’

Dandamudi said that companies will either succeed in passing the tariffs along to their customers or they will be forced to cancel projects.

“The tariffs will be devastating for small businesses like ours,” she said. “Going forward, we won’t be able to sign any new contracts unless clients address the tariffs.”

Holly Seidewand, owner of First Fill Spirits, a shop in Saratoga Springs, New York, that sells Canadian whisky and other specialty spirits, said her plans for the future have been put on hold due to the tariffs. Her original plan for 2025 was to almost double her inventory and the selection she offered.

“For now, we have no plans of adding more shelving or space for new items, we will stick to the footprint we have,” she said. “This will delay the growth of our business, making us a bit stagnant.’’

D’Innocenzio and Anderson reported from New York. Associated Press Staff Writers Rodrique Ngowi in Billerica, Massachusetts and Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a news conference on imposed U.S. tariffs in Ottawa, Ontario, on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press via AP)

An employee removes American-made wine from their shelves at Bishop's Cellar in Halifax on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (Darren Calabrese /The Canadian Press via AP)

Canadian Bourbon sits on a shelf at a store in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Avocados imported from Mexico sit at a grocery store in San Francisco, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Workers harvest cabbage Wednesday, March 5, 2025, on a field less than ten miles from the border with Mexico, in Holtville, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A truck loaded with produce from Mexico and Canada passes through Pharr, Texas, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Isaac Arguelles stocks Mexican-grown green onions at a market as tariffs against Mexico go into effect Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

In this image made from video, Canadian flag pins are on display at the Whiskeyjack Boutique gift shop Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in Windsor, Ontario. (AP Photo/Mike Householder)

FILE - Trucks loaded with avocados are seen reflected on a rear view mirror as they are escorted by the police on their way to the city of Uruapan, in Santa Ana Zirosto, Michoacan state, Mexico, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Armando Solis, File)

FILE - Workers sort avocados at a packing plant in Uruapan, Mexico, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Armando Solis, File)