{"id":257833,"date":"2025-11-12T01:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T01:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257833\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T01:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T01:37:08","slug":"novak-djokovic-had-slap-from-reality-but-believes-he-can-win-record-25th-grand-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257833\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic had ‘slap from reality’ but believes he can win record 25th Grand Slam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sinner reached all four major finals in a year when he also served a three-month doping suspension after twice testing positive for a banned substance in 2024.<\/p>\n

Wada accepted Sinner “did not intend to cheat” and Djokovic said he believed the Italian “didn’t do it on purpose”.<\/p>\n

However, Djokovic warned that the case would remain a “cloud” over the 24-year-old throughout his career.<\/p>\n

“That cloud will follow him as the cloud of Covid will follow me,” said Djokovic, who was deported from Australia in 2022<\/a> because he was not vaccinated against the virus.<\/p>\n

“Over time it will fade, but I don’t think it will disappear.”<\/p>\n

A number of players questioned the timing<\/a> of Sinner’s ban, with Djokovic adding: “There is the lack of transparency, the inconsistency, the convenience [of] the ban coming between the slams so he doesn’t miss out. It was very, very odd.<\/p>\n

“I really don’t like how the case was being handled. You could hear so many other players who had similar situations coming out in the media and complaining that it was a preferable treatment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinner reached all four major finals in a year when he also served a three-month doping suspension after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-257833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}