Forgive Me Tennis, For I Have Sinner

The reaction to the Jannik Sinner doping scandal, and now its outcome, reminds me of a similar reaction to the Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal. In that case — and I’ll be careful not to paint with too broad a brush as I get back into the Sinner case — there were a few types of people.

Essentially, there were those who bought the story and those who didn’t. The ones who didn’t saw Shohei Ohtani largely absolved of fault for millions in gambling debt, and they saw that as evidence of what I’ll call a ‘conspiracy of convenience.’ This was the type of person who saw the biggest baseball star in the world getting what they took to be unfairly generous treatment from the league, which, they believed, would not be afforded to some random minor leaguer caught in the same mess. Oh, will you look at that. Ohtani’s going to get off with no penalty. Surprise, surprise.

Rarely in this thinking was there room left to consider whether Ohtani actually did something wrong. I’m hearing a good deal less skepticism now that federal prosecutors have built their case against the translator accused of stealing from him, Ippei Mizuhara, and he’s pleaded guilty to racking up roughly ~$40M in gambling debts, on his own, without Ohtani’s knowledge.

I’ll pull a line out of the criminal complaint to illustrate my point. Here’s the bookmaker threatening to tell Ohtani about Mizuhara’s gambling debts, which suggests that Ohtani’s lack of knowledge was actually a source of leverage for the bookmaker.

“On or about November 17, 2023, BOOKMAKER 1 messaged MIZUHARA stating, “Hey Ippie, it’s 2 o’clock on Friday. I don’t know why you’re not returning my calls. I’m here in Newport Beach and I see [Ohtani] walking his dog. I’m just gonna go up and talk to him and ask how I can get in touch with you since you’re not responding? Please call me back immediately.”

But the reaction in the moment didn’t leave room for those details to emerge. It was very easy — lazy, really — to look at Mizuhara as the convenient fall guy and conclude, more definitively than was remotely possible, that something just felt off about it. As if that amounts to anything. The reaction at the time did not allow that maybe Shohei’s story — that he’d been repeatedly stolen from, to the tune of millions of dollars — was in fact true.

How do I know people reacted that way? Because I did! For shame. Even if I was more careful about everything else, I totally went for that part.

And why is that? Because it is very, very easy — and yes, lazy — to rush to judgment in the absence of clarity. We all do it, all the time. We’re impatient like that, and rarely do we go back and correct the record once we know more. Especially if what we’ve learned contradicts what we thought at the time.

Now. Unfortunately, we’re probably never going to get that level of clarity in the Sinner case. Absent a federal prosecution against Sinner’s massage therapist, the legal bits are already done here. The truth is, I do not know what Sinner knew and what he didn’t. There may be only one guy who does.

What we do know is that people are comparably pissed about unfair treatment, including a bunch of other prominent tennis players, and shock jock commentators like us.

And look, I may be a fan of Sinner, but I’m not about to sit here and say a 3-month ban falling now doesn’t read as a little fishy. For this to happen now, right in the gap in the Grand Slam calendar, after the Australian Open — which Sinner played in and won — and before the French Open in May, is indeed convenient. That’s a fair description from where I’m standing.

What I’m wondering about is where the facts of this case, as we understand them, should have led instead. Would people be happier if, in a few month’s time, based on the same set of facts, he received no ban at all?

WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, appealed this in the first place because they believed the ITIA (International Tennis Integrity Agency) “finding of ‘no fault or negligence’ was not correct under the applicable rules.” Thus, starting in September, they’ve been taking another look.

~5 months later, here we are. This is the latest statement from WADA, emphasis mine:

“WADA accepts the athlete’s explanation for the cause of the violation as outlined in the first instance decision. WADA accepts that Mr. Sinner did not intend to cheat, and that his exposure to clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit and took place without his knowledge as the result of negligence of members of his entourage. However, under the Code and by virtue of CAS precedent, an athlete bears responsibility for the entourage’s negligence. Based on the unique set of facts of this case, a three-month suspension is deemed to be an appropriate outcome.”

Alright. Anything from the lawyers? Here’s WADA’s general counsel explaining further in an interview with the BBC:

"WADA went back and looked at every single one of Mr. Sinner's samples for the 12 months before the two positives in March of last year to see whether there was any even indication, albeit not meeting the identification criteria, but any suspicious indication of this substance in any of those samples…

And the answer from all of the labs, and this is a large number of samples, was that there was not. So I think whatever people say and think about this case, it is not a doping case or a cheating case."

Granted, WADA has ample reason to defend their decision too. Just like any player, and the sport itself, they’ve got an image to maintain. So if you want to say: well, WADA’s on the take too, so you can’t really trust their analysis. They just appealed to be able to say they did; they were never going to do anything. If that’s where you’re landing on this, then, okay. I can’t stop you from feeling that way.

Entertain that WADA’s accounting of events is the god’s honest truth, though, and all of a sudden we’re looking at a very different set of considerations. Sinner bears some responsibility for the negligence of his team, as noted above, but if everyone’s agreed that there was no benefit to his performance, and he didn’t intend to take it, then what are we actually talking about here?

And remember, WADA is the agency that made the appeal. The lawyer quoted above is the one who ‘prosecuted’ the case. Is there such thing as a doping case that doesn’t even rise to the level of doping? ‘Cause this kinda sounds like it!

I’ll return to two points I found telling the first time I approached this story.

1.) In Sinner’s home country of Italy, the drug in question, clostebol, is commonly sold as an ingredient in topical OTC ointments, to the degree that…

2.) Several Italian players have faced ITIA cases over clostebol specifically in recent years, with a variety of outcomes ranging from no punishment to a two-year ban.

I’ve been upfront about my believing his explanation, and maybe that’s just me being naive. There may well come a day when new facts emerge that change my mind about this.

But as things stand today, it seems as if the explanation we’re getting — convenient though it admittedly is — might just be the explanation.

🏒 Pretty cool to see hockey on top of the sports world this week. The Tkachuks and I go way back to the Lou, so I’m proud of them. But it had to be McDavid, right? Maybe I’m just not feeling very patriotic lately, but I kinda feel like Canada had to get this one right now. Great stuff.

🏀 Safe to say the NBA All-Star Game was not saved this year. What’s gonna do it? Possibly nothing!

🏀 That said, extra points for 40-year-olds who put up 40 (even if they confusingly skip the ASG beforehand to do it, demonstrating the issues the league is having with the game as well as anything). Still though. Man. That LeBron guy is onto something.

🏀 Very interested to see SGA drop his agent this week, not because I know anything about SGA’s agent, but because players like Lamar Jackson have already shown us that having an agent is not always a necessary ingredient for success. Kind of an important development for the business of sports altogether.

⚽ And speaking of CAS, don’t forget this neat-o Man City video I worked on!