Jannik Sinner has ‘remarkable’ return to tennis at Italian Open after doping ban

Jannik Sinner enjoyed a winning return to tennis on Saturday after serving a three-month doping ban, as he defeated Mariano Navone in front of a rapturous crowd at his home Italian Open.

Jannik Sinner enjoyed a winning return to tennis on Saturday after serving a three-month doping ban, as he defeated Mariano Navone in front of a rapturous crowd at his home Italian Open. The Italian still holds the world No. 1 spot despite his enforced absence from the sport and he lived up to that mantle, overcoming an impressive Navone 6-3, 6-4 in Rome. But it was the reaction from his home crowd who gave him a standing ovation that “means much more than any result,” he told reporters. One fan held up a sign that read “Bentornato Jannik (Welcome back Jannik),” others dressed in orange, referencing Sinner’s ginger hair, or hung over the railings while he practiced to take photos of him. Sinner was playing in his first match since returning from a three-month ban having twice tested positive for the banned substance Clostebol, an anabolic steroid, in March last year. The three-time grand slam champion previously escaped a ban when the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) ruled that he wasn’t at fault for the positive tests, accepting that the contamination was caused by a physio applying an over-the-counter spray.