Iga Swiatek has received support from former ATP world No. 1 Andy Roddick, who does not think she should be considered a doper.

Over a week has passed since it was publicly revealed that Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine from a sample she submitted to the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).

Swiatek received a provisional ban in September. After the case became public, the 2022 US Open champion revealed in a lengthy video how terrified she was of losing everything she had worked for over the years.

The four-time French Open winner appealed the provisional ban on September 22nd, explaining that the positive test occurred from melatonin, which is not a prohibited product, being contaminated with trimetazidine.

Further testing by the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory found Swiatek’s explanation to be correct, and the provisional suspension was lifted on October 4th, undoubtedly to the Pole’s relief.

Swiatek’s appeal of the provisional ban meant the case was kept private in a similar manner to Jannik Sinner’s. That was why fans worldwide only discovered the news last week when the world No. 2 accepted the one-month suspension, most of which she had already served provisionally.

Some players were enraged by the case’s handling. Nick Kyrgios has been one of the most outspoken critics of Swiatek and Sinner. Eugenie Bouchard agreed with Kyrgios’ anger and frustration.

However, Roddick does not share those views. He slammed those, like Kyrgios, who have harshly criticized Swiatek and Sinner, even though they have, in his words, “never put in two good days of work.”

In an episode of his podcast Served with Andy Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion outlined why he does not believe what happened to Swiatek should be considered doping.

“I can’t call it doping. It’s like taking a 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.”

“It’s just unfortunate for her, obviously. A negative test in Paris at the Olympics, negative tests in New York. So this isn’t some ongoing thing. It just sucks. It just sucks ’cause the headlines people will say, the dumbest people in our sports, ‘Ah, doping!’”

“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.”

Roddick feels reflection is needed on what is trying to be achieved when testing players since Sinner and Swiatek were positive for tiny amounts of the banned substances that would not have impacted their performance.

“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.”

“Now if we’re foreseeing simply, if we’re seeing all the scientists are telling us in the independent tribunals with people that know a lot more about all this crap, the people that knew what clostebol was six months ago or four months ago, those types of people are saying ‘well, it didn’t enhance performance at all’, then why the f**k do we care?”