On November 28, the ITIA announced that Iga Swiatek had received a one-month suspension as it was deemed she carried “no significant fault or negligence.” They revealed Swiatek was provisionally suspended from September 12 to October 4 for testing positive for a banned substance, trimetazidine (TMZ). After hearing about this, we’ve seen players like Nick Kyrgios and Simona Halep stepping up to raise their concerns about some preferential treatment. Both the players faced quite a few backlashes from the fans for their controversial comments in the last few weeks. Interestingly, amid all these controversies, both Kyrgios and Halep will now team up at the World Tennis League. 

If we take a look at some of their comments on the doping saga, well, Nick Kyrgios is perhaps the most vocal critic of the relatively light sanctions dished out to both Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner after testing positive in the doping tests. As soon as Iga Swiatek’s case came to the limelight, Kyrgios tweeted, “OUR SPORT IS COOKED.” Then came another tweet, where he said, “The excuse that we can all use is that we didn’t know. Simply didn’t know. Professionals at the highest level of sport can now just say ‘we didn’t know.’“

Even Simona Halep, who faced an initial four-year suspension (which was later reduced to nine months) for testing positive for Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open shared her thoughts on the same. Shortly after hearing this news about Iga Swiatek’s doping controversy, she penned down a long note on her IG account saying, “I stand and ask myself, why is there such a big difference in treatment and judgment? I can’t find and I don’t think there can be a logical answer.” Later on, even during an interview with The Telegraph, she took an indirect jibe at Swiatek by saying, “The woman player – I don’t want to give name, you know who I’m talking about – she had the three-week suspension, but then she played two events, and then she again gets a suspension. What is this?“

Now, after this chain of events transpired in the last few weeks, the 2024 World Tennis League organizers have made yet another controversial call. They have placed Simona Halep on Nick Kyrgios’ team. They will play for Team Kites at this mega event in Abu Dhabi! After seeing a fan highlighted one of Nick Kyrgios’ previous posts where he claimed, “I only play with CLEAN players.” The fan captioned the tweet by saying, “Ehhhmm..😉 Don’t come at me because of a cheeky joke😁.” After seeing this, interestingly, Nick Kyrgios came up with a blunt reply. He commented, “Uh she dealt with the consequences lol – unlike sinner who has been able to play the whole time.”

Recently, Nick Kyrgios appeared on the ‘Nothing Major’ podcast and even during the podcast he took a dig at both Sinner and Swiatek. He said, “Honestly, it’s nothing personal. Like, I’ve got nothing personal on Iga. I just think that it should be a level playing field for everyone and that’s what pisses me off…Once you get caught you can’t act like the victim. That’s what pisses me off even more. I’m like, ‘hold on a second’“. After hearing about these constant jibes, recently Iga Swiatek’s coach Wim Fissette responded to the critics. What did he say?

Iga Swiatek’s coach takes a dig at Nick Kyrgios, Simona Halep and others

Just a few days ago, we saw Iga Swiatek responding to the strong comments that she received from players like Simona Halep and others in the past few weeks. She said that she doesn’t agree there are grounds to compare her doping case to the ones of Jannik Sinner or someone like Simona Halep. Reason? Swiatek believes all of them were in “completely different” situations.

She further added, “The process of proving innocence will also be different. It’s hard to compare me to Sinner, to Halep, to Kamil Majchrzak, because each of us is struggling with a different problem.”

Recently, after hearing repeated criticisms about Iga Swiatek, her new coach Wim Fissette shared a few strong words aimed at Nick Kyrgios, Simona Halep, and other critics. In an interview with Przeglad Sportowy Onet, the Belgian argued that those who have read all the documents related to the case thoroughly wouldn’t question Iga Swiatek’s innocence.

He said, “There will always be people who will be negative, but I think that anyone who has read all the documents that Iga has provided and shown to the whole world, sees what happened. And should understand that it was just bad luck. It can happen to any player…I think that those people who are negative about the case, we should ask a few questions about Iga’s report and thus check whether they have actually read it.” What are your thoughts on Wim Fissette’s reply to critics like Nick Kyrgios and Simona Halep in the doping cases?