On the eve of the start of the 2025 Australian Open tennis tournament at Melbourne Park this Sunday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has confirmed that the hearing on the drug ban case of Italy's world football champion Sinner will be held behind closed doors from April 16.

Sinner, 23

The 23-year-old Sinner, who was tested for extremely low levels of banned drugs twice in March 2024, although he clarified that he was a team protector who was accidentally medicated by a hand injury, and inadvertently caused pollution while massaging his body, and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) also accepted this reason, but the whole incident dragged on for more than 5 months before it came to light, causing heated discussions from all walks of life, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has appealed to CAS in September, asking for a ban of up to two years.

Now the CAS responded with a statement on Friday, when the hearing in Sinner's drug ban case will last two days, and since no party has asked for it to be made public, it will be held behind closed doors. Sinner, on the other hand, is the top seed and defending champion at the Australian Open, and his men's singles debut will be against Chilean opponent Jia Rui.

Djokovic lost to Sinner in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open last year, and the latter won the Australian Open and the US Open in 2024, dominating the hard-court Grand Slam tournaments, almost writing a perfect season, but failed the drug test twice in March, and only cancelled the prize money and points obtained from participating in the Indian Wells Masters at that time after appealing, which attracted many doubts.

WADA appealed to CAS last September, seeking a one- to two-year suspension from Sinner, which was expected to be decided earlier this year. Now it seems that it will be postponed until at least April.