Navratilova makes a fair point about starting from scratch. The anti-doping regime in tennis clearly has devolved to the point where a major function is no longer keeping the sport "clean," but rather protecting the strict liability structure for its own sake, maximizing
in terrorem deterrence (look at Raducanu and her antiseptic spray phobia), and punishing players for bad staff management and other non-competition-related miscues. I've made the point here many times that WADA's appeal in the Sinner case is primarily designed to serve these ends, and to protect WADA more than to protect tennis.
Step back for a second from our immersion in the tennis context, especially the miscellaneous grievances about how other players were treated in the past, and ask whether a rational, straightforward drug-testing system, focused just on ensuring fair competition, would threaten to hand out huge suspensions for offenses in which no intentional PED use occurred and the accidental PED exposure that happened did not result in any impact to competition.
In another post, I cited the summary of the Sinner case in the
New York Times (
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5806315/2025/01/10/jannik-sinner-doping-case-tennis-explained/), in which it was noted that both WADA and the ITIA accepted that Sinner did not dope intentionally. Some anonymous person added a comment that could represent the way this case looks to outside observers who may not be steeped in tennis lore or the various maniacal online doping conspiracy theories that have come to seem "normal" to this forum:
Maybe this commenter is a Sinner fan; maybe not. Maybe he or she is just a puzzled "neutral" wondering why tennis is so screwed up.