This year’s Wimbledon was full of jaw-dropping tennis from Jannik Sinner and Iga Świątek, but it also made history for a different reason: both champions were priorly hit with suspensions after inadvertent doping violations. When Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz in the final, Nick Kyrgios even took to Twitter and posted a lone “*”, implying a tainted victory. But the truth is, neither Sinner nor Świątek set out to cheat – tiny, accidental contaminants were to blame.

What Actually Happened

Back in March 2024 at Indian Wells, world No. 1 Jannik Sinner tested positive twice for clostebol, a banned steroid. His first sample came during the tournament on March 10, and a second out-of-competition test on March 18 showed the same trace amount. An independent panel heard Sinner’s explanation: his physio treated a finger cut with an over-the-counter clostebol spray, massaged his minor skin lesions without gloves, and unknowingly transferred minuscule doses into his system. Because the amounts were so tiny – measured in billionths of a gram – and there was no evidence Sinner intentionally doped, he escaped a lengthy ban. He did forfeit $325,000 in prize money, lost 400 ranking points, and accepted a three-month sanction to end WADA’s appeal.

Fast forward to August 2024, and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek tested positive out-of-competition for trimetazidine (TMZ), a heart-medication-turned-prohibited metabolic agent. Investigators traced the source to a batch of store-bought melatonin she was using to fight jet-lag. Independent lab tests found that a specific lot of melatonin was contaminated with TMZ. Again, the tribunal found “no significant fault or negligence,” so Świątek served a one-month suspension during the off-season, relinquished her Cincinnati prize money, and avoided a longer ban once the melatonin batch was pinpointed.

These high-profile cases are a wake-up call: modern anti-doping tests are so sensitive they can pick up parts per trillion. That means even unintentional contamination in “safe” supplements can hurt careers. Here’s what every athlete – and anyone buying over-the-counter products – needs to know:

1. Cross-contamination happens. Factories often run multiple products on the same equipment. A banned substance in one line can leak into another.

2. Labels can lie—or at least, omit. Proprietary blends and imports might skip ingredients, or list only the main ones, leaving trace contaminants off the label.

3. One batch isn’t the next. You might get a clean bottle today and a tainted one tomorrow. Without batch-specific testing, you’re rolling the dice.

To protect yourself, always stick to products certified by NSF Certified for Sport®, Informed-Sport®, or BSCG. When possible, choose single-ingredient or pharmacy-dispensed supplements – fewer ingredients, fewer surprises..

Tennis matches are often decided by millimeters at the net; in anti-doping, the margins are even thinner. The Sinner and Świątek stories remind us that true fair play starts long before match point – it starts in the lab reports, factory lines, and label fine print. At the end of the day, every ingredient matters!

On your Journey to Greatness,
Ciaran + Elisha + Mason + Mitchell
Skye Performance