Fear of swallowing a contaminated substance prompted Britain’s Emma Raducanu to refuse treatment for an insect bite ahead of this weekend’s Australian Open.
In a speech before her first-round match against 26th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Aleksandrova, the former US Open champion said recent high-profile doping cases had made her wary.
“I got bit really bad by who knows what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I think I have an allergy,” Raducanu said at a press conference before the tournament.
“They got shiny and swollen really bad. Someone was giving me this natural antiseptic spray to soothe the bites. I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want to spray it.
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“I was left there with a swollen ankle and hand. I thought, “I’ll just try it because I don’t want to take any risks.” This obviously worries us.”
Tennis suffered a shock last year when men’s world number one Jannik Sinner tested positive for the banned substance clostebol, but avoided a ban after an independent tribunal hearing found he had no fault or negligence.
Sinner’s explanation that he was inadvertently contaminated with the substance by a physiotherapist during a massage was accepted, although the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed the decision.
Five-time women’s Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek also avoided a long-term ban after a tribunal admitted that a failed doping test for the banned substance trimetazidine was the result of a contaminated batch of melatonin, a sleeping drug.
These cases will remain a hot topic in Melbourne and Raducanu said players need to be especially careful.
“We are all in the same boat. “I think we’re just dealing with the controllables as best we can,” she said.
“If something happens that we have no control over, it will be difficult for us to prove it.”
