Despite anger for positive doping test
Tennis star defends explosive return from fitness coach
16.08.2025 – 07:15 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Tennis star Jannik Sinner works again with his ex-athletics coach-despite his influence on a doping violation of the Italian. Now he has explained the return campaign for the first time.
Jannik Sinner first commented in Cincinnati to return his former fitness coach. Umberto Ferrara is back in the world ranking team – one year after the Italian had separated from him in connection with a doping violation. “It was a different situation. Now everything is different. I felt that I at the moment needed someone who knows my body better,” said Sinner.
At first, the 23-year-old had not said further a personnel and only referred to an official statement. When asked by tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, Sinner said that they had worked intensively together for two years, “before that happened”. Ferrara’s work helped him a lot.
Together they would have worked on all physical aspects – from mobility to stability to endurance. Sinner emphasized: “I think he did a great job.” Now he wants to focus again on “continuity and performance at the highest level”.
Sinner was tested positively for the forbidden anabolic steroid closebol in March 2024. At the time, the Wimbledon winner referred to the behavior of the athletic coach: Ferrara got a spray that contained closebol to treat a finger injury. Sinner also separated from his physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi, who administered the spray in a massage, in August 2024.
Sinner, who had been closed to this February for a violation of the anti-doping regulations for three months, had spoken of a loss of trust at the time and decided to separate. After just under a year he undo this.