Sinner Re-Hires Umberto Ferrara

Sinner haters in various comment sections on the internet continue to harass Jannik with needle emojis, and they give him nicknames like clostebol boy and stuff like that. However, this time it's Jannik Sinner himself who is refreshing this story, as he has rehired Ferrara, whom he had fired along with Naldi in August 2024.

Now, when I first saw this, I honestly thought it was a joke. I thought it was one of these joke accounts on Twitter, like TennisCentel, that were making stuff up because it doesn't seem like a good PR move to rehire the guy who was responsible for you testing positive.

The Case

I vividly remember the news about Sinner's doping. It was after the Cincinnati tournament, and I read the entire case, and I know that there was a dispute between Naldi and Ferrara. And I do think that this is an important consideration to figure out the reasons why Jannik would hire Ferrara back.

First of all, Ferrara was Jannik's fitness coach. He is also a pharmacist. Naldi was Jannik's physiotherapist. He was the guy who gave Jannik massages and taped up his ankles, and so on. So Naldi reached into his bag and cut his finger on a scalpel. Ferrara had given Naldi a spray that contained a banned substance. Naldi sprayed himself with the spray and then proceeded to provide Jannik with a massage. And that's how the banned substance got into Jannik's system.

I want to remind you that WADA accepted that Sinner did not intend to cheat and that his exposure to clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit. It occurred without his knowledge, resulting from the negligence of members of his entourage. However, the athlete does bear responsibility for the negligence of his team, and that's why Sinner received a three-month suspension.

Innocence

Professor David Cowan concluded that the player's explanation for the finding of clostebol metabolites in the first sample and the second sample, as having arisen from him unknowingly being contaminated by his physiotherapist. Naldi was using Trophin spray containing 5 mg of clostebol acetate, to be entirely plausible based on the explanation given and the concentrations identified by the laboratory. Even if the administration had been intentional, the minute amounts likely to have been administered would not have had any relevant doping or performance-enhancing effect upon the player. Furthermore, he found no evidence to support any other scenario.

So, based on these findings, it is clear that Jannik Sinner is not a doper, because the amount of the banned substance that was in his system was too small to have any performance-enhancing effect. He got the banned substance into his system through the negligence of his team.

Team Dispute

Now, according to the ITIA report, there is a factual dispute between Naldi and Ferrara. Ferrara claims to have warned Naldi that the spray contained an illegal substance and that it should not be applied anywhere near the player, while Naldi could not remember any such warning being given. The tribunal considers that, on balance, Mr. Ferrara's version of events is more compelling, given that he had a clear recollection of the instructions he communicated versus Mr. Naldi's broad non-recollection.

In consequence, the tribunal determined that Mr. Ferrara did provide a warning to Mr. Naldi. The tribunal also determined that the reason for Mr. Ferrara's warning was out of concern that the player might come into direct contact with Trophin, rather than any possibility of cross-contamination, which he believed could be well avoided.

So there you have it. Based on these cross-examinations, it appears that Ferrara warned Naldi about this spray. Interestingly, Jannik rehired Ferrara, but not Naldi.

Everyone At Fault

There are several ways to look at this. First and foremost, I still believe—just as I did a year ago—that simply having a spray with a banned substance in it is reckless from Ferrara's perspective to begin with. As I found out last year, there are versions of that spray in other countries that don't contain any illegal substances. If this is a type of spray that's necessary for cuts, that's another story.

I do think that Ferrara had some fault for even having that spray on him. But of course, Naldi was reckless by applying the spray and then massaging and contaminating Jannik Sinner.

So, the critical question is: Why would Jannik Sinner create a PR nightmare for himself by rehiring Ferrara, whom he had fired alongside Naldi last August?

Composure

Jannik Sinner strikes me as an honest person. He strikes me as someone who does things the right way, and also as someone who shields himself from criticism. I don't think Jannik cares much about what other people are saying about him. The results prove this to be true, because Jannik continues to play incredible tennis despite quite a bit of criticism.

Therefore, it is possible that Jannik, under pressure, fired both of these individuals last year. It is also possible that Jannik learned after he had fired them that it was possibly more Naldi's fault than Ferrara's. And that's the reason why he hired Ferrara back.

It's also possible that Jannik Sinner doesn't care about the backlash or the bad PR, and that he genuinely believes it was a mistake, much like he said last year when he fired these individuals. He thanked them for all the work they did for him. I genuinely believe that Jannik appreciates both of those guys, but he said last year that mistakes were made, and that's why he had to let them go.

So, again, perhaps it's possible that he learned after the fact that Ferrara didn't make a mistake—other than having the spray on him—and it was more Naldi's fault.

Final Thoughts

With this rehiring, the story will linger for a while and raise questions. And that's the reason why I'm writing this—because I wanted to read you the whole story so that you know the background.

Because again, if you just read this as a headline—"Jannik Sinner hires the guy back who was responsible for his positive doping test"—that looks bad on the surface. But when you dig a little bit more inside the story, and when you try to understand Sinner as a person, this rehiring of Ferrara might make a little bit more sense.