"I have to be to be honest": Alexander Zverev lambasts 'annoying' doping process ahead of Madrid Open opener

Germany’s Alexander Zverev has called the doping process ‘annoying’. In the world of tennis, news regarding dope tests has come under the spotlight in the recent past, with two world number ones, Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Poland’s Iga Swiatek, testing positive for different banned substances.

Sinner tested positive in two dope tests in March last year for the banned substance Clostebol. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) declared the three-time Grand Slam winner innocent following a detailed hearing where his counsel claimed that the substance was available in the player’s sample because he came in close contact with his physio, Naldi, who used to spray for the treatment of a cut on his finger. His misery, however, continued as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) decided to appeal the verdict. The case concluded after both Sinner and WADA agreed that the player would stay out of action for three months and would return to the court just before the start of the Rome Masters in May. On the other hand, Swiatek tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine and was subsequently handed a three-month suspension.

Zverev, who is regarded as one of the best players currently playing in men’s tennis in the singles category and is set to begin his campaign at the ongoing Madrid Open, has been quoted in a report by Tennis 365, where he called the doping process ‘annoying’.

“I think it’s just a subject that we’ve been talking about more over the last year, or not year, half a year or so, because of, obviously, Jannik and Iga a little bit. But, in general, nothing really changes for us, nothing changed,” said Zverev. “It is an annoying process, I have to be to be honest, because we have to be at a certain place every single day where we kind of give our details of where we’re going to be for like an hour a day. But at the same time if they show up not in the hour that we gave them, you still have to come back to the place.”