Serena Williams believes men’s No. 1 tennis player Jannik Sinner got off light when he received a three-month suspension after testing positive for a banned steroid. If Williams was in the same position, the former tennis star believes she would have “gotten 20 years” and had Grand Slams taken away.
Williams made those comments to Time magazine, where she was named one of the magazine’s top-100 most influential people. Williams — who stressed she is still a Sinner fan and loves his game — believes she would have received much harsher punishments if she ever failed a drug test during her playing career.
“If I did that, I would have gotten 20 years. Let’s be honest. I would have gotten Grand Slams taken away from me.” Williams says she was always extra careful about what went into her body, taking nothing stronger than Advil for fear of ingesting something that could get her in trouble. A performance-enhancing-drugs scandal would have landed her “in jail,” she says, with a laugh. “You would have heard about it in another multiverse.”
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That scenario never came to pass. Williams — who started her professional tennis career in 1995 and retired from the sport in 2022 — never tested positive for a banned steroid during her reign at the top. Over her career, Williams was the No. 1 women’s player in the world for 319 weeks and won 23 major women’s singles titles. She dealt with plenty of criticism and scrutiny during her career, but never faced a drug-related suspension.
Sinner accepted a three-month suspension from the World Anti-Doping Agency in February after two positive doping tests in 2024. The first positive came last March, when Sinner registered a positive test for clostebol, an anabolic steroid. Eight days later, Sinner tested positive for clostebol again, and was provisionally suspended.
Sinner appealed that suspension and had it overturned by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA). The ITIA found that Sinner’s positive test was the “result of contamination from a support team member, who had been applying an over-the-counter spray containing clostebol to their own skin to treat a small wound.” The organization said the steroid was then passed to Sinner as a result of “daily massages and sports therapy.”
In September, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed Sinner’s suspension. WADA questioned the ITIA’s decision, saying it “was not correct under the applicable rules.” WADA initially sought a one or two year ban for Sinner.
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Both sides eventually came to an agreement on a three-month suspension for Sinner. In its statement, WADA said it accepted Sinner’s explanation for how the steroid entered his body. WADA also stated it did not believe Sinner intentionally cheated. However, the organization still issued a suspension due to his negligence.
Sinner is eligible to return to action in May, and isn’t expected to miss any Grand Slams as a result of the suspension.
The validity of Williams’ comments can’t be proven. She never tested positive for a banned substance during her career, and isn’t expected to return to the court as a professional. But Williams is well aware of the increased scrutiny she faced during her playing days, and knows fan outcry and backlash would have been massive if she was ever in Sinner’s position.
