“I’ve taken melatonin before,” Andy Roddick backs Iga Swiatek as her situation is not ‘doping’ case

Andy Roddick said there shouldn't be any question about 'doping' if drugs found in players' bodies in small amounts don't affect performance.

“I’ve taken melatonin before,” Andy Roddick backs Iga Swiatek as her situation is not ‘doping’ case

Andy Roddick (L), Iga Swiatek (R) (Via Imago)

Andy Roddick defended Iga Swiatek amidst the doping row. Roddick, like many of Swiatek’s supporters, is not ready to consider that the Pole’s situation should fall under ‘doping’, and claimed that a tiny amount of a performance enhancer does not affect a player.

Swiatek became the second high-profile tennis player, after men’s World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, to fail a drug test. The test came out positive just three days before the Cincinnati Masters and she was provisionally suspended for three weeks, missing three tournaments on the Asian swing.

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Trimetazidine was found in her sample because she was consuming melatonin to deal with jet lag and sleep issues. She was handed a one-month ban which was lifted on December 4.

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I can’t call it doping. It’s like taking melatonin for jet lag at 2:30 in the morning in Cincy and having… think about how many things had to go wrong for Iga Swiatek to get popped for melatonin and something that was contaminated.

Andy Roddick said on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast

Roddick, who has taken melatonin before, said ‘it sucks’ when players have to deal with criticism. He questioned the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) as to why players were punished for failing a test even when performance enhancement couldn’t have been possible.

I’ve taken melatonin before. Who’s to say ours weren’t contaminated and are we going to continue to clutch pearls about one billionth of a gram of something or contaminated melatonin that didn’t have any performance enhancement?

Andy Roddick added
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Andy Roddick continues his rant against doping verdicts

Andy Roddick said he couldn’t understand why everyone is even ‘caring’ about Iga Swiatek, Jannik Sinner, and other innocent players because in their cases, the drug didn’t enhance their performances.

Andy Roddick
Andy Roddick (Image via Imago)

Roddick thinks that if the ITIA and World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) job is to stop performance enhancement with drugs, then there shouldn’t be any controversy when a small amount of the drugs enter players’ bodies and don’t affect their performance at all.

What are we trying to solve with the ITIA and then to WADA, what are we trying to solve for? Performance enhancement. We want to stop performance with drugs.

Andy Roddick said on his podcast
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Roddick was recently slammed by Nick Kyrgios for defending Swiatek, as the Aussie accused the American of doping. Unlike Roddick, Kyrgios has been censuring both the players and the ITIA as he thinks tennis ‘is cooked’ because of different verdicts on similar cases.