
Jannik Sinner reappoints fitness coach he dropped after doping scandal
Sinner parted ways with Ferrara and physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi last year following the investigation into his positive tests for banned substance clostebol.
'The decision has been made in alignment with Jannik's management team as part of ongoing preparations for upcoming tournaments, including the Cincinnati Open and US Open,' a statement from Sinner's team said. 'Umberto has played an important role in Jannik's development to date, and his return reflects a renewed focus on continuity and performance at the highest level.'
Sinner served a three-month suspension earlier this year after agreeing a settlement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) in February after authorities accepted that the anabolic agent clostebol had entered his system inadvertently via massages from Naldi at Indian Wells in March 2024.
Wada had appealed to the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) against an independent tribunal's decision last August to clear Sinner of wrongdoing.
Sinner, who returned to action in May and lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the French Open final before beating him to win Wimbledon, said clostebol, which can build muscle mass, entered his system after Naldi applied an over-the-counter spray to a cut on his own hand before carrying out treatments on Sinner. The spray had been given to Naldi by trainer Ferrara. Sinner was cleared of fault or negligence by an independent tribunal.
Speaking at last year's US Open, Sinner explained his decision to part ways with Ferrara and Naldi. 'Now, because of these mistakes, I'm not feeling that confident to continue with them. I was struggling a lot in the last months. I was waiting for the result. The only thing I need right now is some clean air,' he said.
Ferrara, who had laid the blame for the incident on Naldi, worked with Sinner's fellow Italian Matteo Berrettini this year. Sinner, 23, had split with Marco Panichi and Ulises Badio, his trainer and physiotherapist, before Wimbledon.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Spectator
2 hours ago
- Spectator
How bad can August storms get?
Injury time England bowler Chris Woakes won a standing ovation for coming out to bat against India at the Oval with his arm in a sling after dislocating his shoulder – although in the event he didn't have to face a ball before England lost. Some other sportsmen who carried on while injured: — Franz Beckenbauer played out half an hour of extra time during the semi final of the 1970 football World Cup, also with his arm in a sling after dislocating his shoulder. His German team beat Italy 4-3. — Manchester City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann played the last quarter of an hour of the 1956 FA Cup Final with a broken neck after colliding with a Birmingham City player. His side won 3-1. — Tiger Woods won the 2008 US Open in spite of playing with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and two stress fractures in his leg. World class The government wants to ban universities from taking foreign students where they have a high drop-out rate. Which countries sent the most students to Britain in 2023/24? India 166,310 China 149,885 Nigeria 57,505 Pakistan 45,720 US 23,250 Hong Kong 17,258 Malaysia 12,760 Bangladesh 12,285 Saudi Arabia 9,680 Source: Higher Education Statistics Authority Road toll How do deaths from drink-driving compare with those from driving under the influence of illegal or medical drugs? In 2023, 869 drivers died in road accidents. Of those: — 771 were tested for alcohol, which was found in 171 cases. — 27 were tested for medical drugs likely to cause impairment; 23 were positive. — 612 were tested for 'drugs of misuse', of which 131 were positive. Source: Department for Transport Storm surge Scotland and the north of England were hit by unusually strong storms by August standards. How bad can August storms get? — On 14 August 1979 a storm struck the Irish Sea during the Fastnet Yacht Race, with wind speeds of up to 63mph. Of 303 boats which began the race, only 86 finished; 15 competitors and 6 spectators died. — On 25 August 1986 ex-Hurricane Charley struck the British Isles with winds of up to 65mph. Ireland was especially affected, with 7.8in of rain in 24 hours.


Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Mistrial, murder and poison — best legal books for summer 2025
From a memoir by Amanda Knox on rebuilding her life after her wrongful imprisonment for the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007, and a gripping mixture of modern and historical crime fiction from Sally Smith and Roger Ede, to a series of discursive essays on sport and philosophy and a trilogy of children's books set in Cornwall, written by a former lawyer and reviewed by a young podcaster — our experts have picked a selection of the best legal books to read over the summer. by Amanda Knox The story seems so familiar — we all feel we know about 'Foxy Knoxy' and her role in the sexually-charged murder of the British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. Yet the many tortuous twists and turns in the complex legal drama that followed Amanda Knox's original murder conviction show just how quickly a tabloid story can travel round the world before the truth has got its boots on. It was the prosecution's case that Knox — now 38 and back in America — with her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and a third man, Rudy Guede, killed Kercher during a violent sexual attack. Prosecutors tried to link the three defendants by claiming that Guede, Knox and Sollecito had burst into Kercher's room, stripped her and held her on her hands and knees while Guede sexually assaulted her, before Knox allegedly delivered the fatal blow by cutting Kercher's neck with a knife. One of those prosecutors, Giuliano Mignini, told the court: 'Under the influence of drugs and probably also alcohol, Amanda decided to involve Meredith in a violent sex game … it was her opportunity to take revenge on that British girl who was too serious and moderate for her tastes, whose clique of English friends always excluded her … for Amanda, the time had come to take revenge on that 'simpering goody two shoes' — so she must have thought.' The sensational coverage of the case guaranteed worldwide attention as well as unprecedented prejudice. All three defendants were convicted, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in jail. • Amanda Knox: 'I was patient zero of social media cancellation' It was only in 2011 that Mignini's invented narrative unravelled and Knox was acquitted of any involvement in the killing, which was solely attributed to Guede, who had broken into the flat Kercher shared with Knox where he carried out his murderous attack. In this book, Knox tells her own story of the strain that such a wrongful verdict placed on her life. She talks candidly about the four years she spent in prison and the life she tried to forge for herself after she was acquitted, before sensationally being reconvicted in 2014 and then finally acquitted the next year. She confronts the harm done to her family and friends who stood by her; pressure from the media and the many ways she tried to free herself from the label 'Foxy Knoxy psycho killer'. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of her journey is her meeting with the man who had constructed the very first false narrative that tore her life apart. Despite several rebuffs, Knox flew to Perugia in 2022 to confront Mignini about his role in the miscarriage. Although the Italian lawyer refused to admit any wrongdoing, the meeting did bring a kind of closure for Knox. Robert Verkaik is a journalist and the author of Posh Boys: How English Public Schools Ruin Britain, published by Oneworld Headline £22 pp304. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members by W Robert Griffiths Sport and philosophy are counterintuitive bedfellows. But Robert Griffiths KC sees them as a marriage made in heaven. 'Sport is a symbolic and existential metaphor for what is and what is to come afterwards, the beyond,' he writes. The idea that philosophy is somehow the counterpart of sport might be surprising to many, he adds, but it was nothing new to Plato. Griffiths is passionate about sport — much of his Bar career has been spent at the interface of sport and the law. He represented the Australian umpire Darrell Hair in his claim against the International Cricket Council in the 2006 ball-tampering affair at the Oval. And he has been a member of the MCC for 20 years, chairing various committees. And that passion burns through this book. But don't expect the inside track on sporting scandals, or cases he has done. The clue is in the somewhat challenging title — the book, he writes, is in many ways a celebration of the wonder of sport, but also a digression from it. It is a 'beyond the looking glass reflection of the concept of sport' — one in which he seeks to justify the place of sport in society, in life and its 'fundamental nature and significance'. The book's chapters — a series of standalone discursive essays — span multiple topics from 'The Greeks and sport', 'Genius, talent and exceptional ability', and 'Fair play, the hand of God and sex'. But in what feels like a personal voyage of discovery, Griffiths also moves into more abstract, reflective realms, looking at consciousness, perception, sport and the human condition; and 'self-overcoming and Nietzsche'. One chapter, barely touching on sport, focuses on life and death, although the fear of the latter is likened to a fear of sporting failure. Griffiths admits he is neither a professional philosopher nor a sportsman. But as the former prime minister John Major says in the foreword, the author loves sport, especially cricket, and 'more importantly, he understands how it resonates in the human spirit'. At 500 pages, 52 chapters and with 1,300 references, the book is a well-researched philosophical treatise in clear language — but a lighthearted romp it is not. Its exhaustive analyses do, though, make a good case for sport as a bridge between action and thought — a means to metaphysical reflection. And if the summer break gives time for a marathon rather than a sprint, it will stimulate and Gibb is the former legal editor at The Times Austin Macauley £17.99 pp576. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members by Sally Smith On a snowy Christmas Eve in 1901, the treasurer of Inner Temple receives a mummified hand in a sweetly scented box. Inside is a jokey note reading 'Can I give you a hand?' More boxes containing body parts and similar notes are received by other members of the Inn, with deadly consequences. Keen to avoid a scandal, the treasurer asks the gentleman hero of this novel, a kindly and unworldly-wise barrister who lives in the hallowed Temple, Sir Gabriel Ward KC, to get to the bottom of the affair with as little fuss as possible. Importantly, the treasurer wishes to avoid the involvement of the City of London police or the attention of the press — the latter being no easy task with the 'ever-present threat of newspaper offices of Fleet Street'. The murder mystery is intertwined with a libel case that Ward has been asked to undertake, representing a 19-year-old music hall starlet, Topsy Tillotson, against the Nation's Voice, a tabloid with a declining circulation facing a precarious financial future. Meanwhile, that paper's editor is disappointed by the speedy trial of another crime, known as the lawnmower murder, complaining that 'when I was a lad … a good murder would guarantee headlines for days'. With the growing backlog of criminal cases, today's barristers may find some irony in this lament by the editor: 'I dunno what is happening to English justice' — it has become 'more efficient, more expeditious, altogether more businesslike. I hates it. Bring back the old days.' In this tale, the press and the Bar meet once a year when the former is invited to evensong in the Temple Church, followed by high table dinner in the Inner Temple — a tradition that has since died out. Two sometimes overlapping plot lines are deftly woven together in a meticulously researched work that opens the doors of readers to the history and traditions of the Temple. It is set in a time when gentlemen wore top hats and pocket watches and only men could become lawyers or serve on juries. The presence of women on a jury was thought to be 'detrimental to the administration of justice' and the only female characters seen in the Temple are its cooks, maids, housekeepers and laundresses. This is the second book in Sally Smith's trials of Gabriel Ward KC historical mystery series. Called to the Bar in 1977, Smith practised as a barrister from 1 Crown Office Row, the set where the fictional Ward is based, and still lives in the Temple. Before retiring from the Bar to write full time, Smith wrote a biography of the Edwardian barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall Baksi is a journalist and former practising barrister Bloomsbury £16.99 pp320. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members by Roger Ede Ian, a defence solicitor who's about to be appointed to the bench, has just successfully thwarted an investigation by Vic, a corrupt police officer, into a call-girl racket. As a result Ray, the owner of the escort agency, gives Ian a night with Stella as a bonus. Ian becomes besotted with Stella, who, in league with Vic, decides to blackmail him at the same time as arranging for him to kill Ian's wife, Annie, who in turn is persuaded to blackmail Ian. Meanwhile, back at the police station, Carly, who has a grudge against Vic, her superior officer, may be having an affair with Kate, a detective agency owner, who does work for Ian. Kate's flatmate, a Japanese woman, Chi, has been introduced to Grant, a clerk in a set of barristers' chambers that Ian instructs, and has been persuaded by him to invest her life savings of £50,000, which he then loses in a cross-Temple betting racket in which suitably vouched for barristers and judges bet on the results of cases including those in which they are involved. Somewhere along the line, Ian and another man are accused of murdering Stella — and Chi wants her money back. All clear so far? Now read on. In the second half of the 16th century, one of the earlier reported cases was that of R v Saunders and Archer, in which the doctrine of transferred malice was propounded. Saunders decided to poison his wife with a doctored apple, but at the last minute his wife gave the fruit to his daughter Eleanor, whom he had no intention of killing. But the girl did die and Saunders was convicted of her murder. Archer, the accomplice who had supplied the poison, was acquitted. When the deaths come in this book, the author uses the doctrine as the basis of the defence but will it succeed in this day and age? Ede, a former judge and one-time criminal law specialist at the Law Society, has written several legal textbooks, but Poisonous, which also serves as a useful little guide to Japanese slang, is his first novel. It rollocks along, with hitmen in Amsterdam, reluctant witnesses 700 miles from Moscow and frolics in Brazil. But it really needed a firm editorial hand with characters coming and going and little in the way of their development. However, Ede may have created a sub-genre of crime fiction — legal fantasy Morton is an author and a former criminal law solicitor Troubador Publishing £10.99 pp344. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members by Richard Susskind Artificial intelligence poses the biggest threat — and perhaps the biggest opportunity — to lawyers today. Most advocates, says Richard Susskind, feel no threat from the emerging technology —computers, after all, cannot stand up in court. But lawyers ignore that computers and online courts eliminate much of the need for oral advocacy. 'You may be a great blacksmith,' Susskind argues, 'but if horses are rarely used, that skill becomes irrelevant.' So what does AI portend for lawyers and their work? And not just for lawyers — for everyone? Susskind, a long-standing legal profession IT guru and former technology adviser to the lord chief justice, is well placed to give a verdict. In his latest book, he is 'generally upbeat' about its prospects. But despite the huge benefits, he admits to being 'increasingly concerned' by actual and potential problems. • Artificial intelligence could replace traditional lawyers by 2035 This timely layman's guide recounts how AI began — a seminal moment came in 1997, when the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, was beaten by an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue. The system had explored 200 million possible moves in one second, while the most a skilled chess-playing human can contemplate is about 110 moves at any given time. Twenty-five years later, the arrival in 2022 of ChatGPT was, in Susskind's words, 'the most remarkable breakthrough in my forty years of working on AI'. It was also a milestone in public recognition of AI's potential. A chatbot that mimics human conversation, the system can answer almost any question in ordinary language and produce content on demand, including art, music and video — even code-writing software. Susskind's highly readable book is a mix of history, analysis of the status quo and ultimately intensely personal reflection — moving into philosophical realms and big moral questions such as the future relationship between humanity, super-intelligent machines and the cosmos itself. Is AI a force for good or bad — and can its development be controlled? Or is it like Frankenstein's monster? Susskind predicts that the most powerful digital technologies are yet to come — something he finds both exhilarating and deeply unsettling. The author believes the genie is only half out of the bottle, that computers are still within our control. But Cassandra-like, the guru warns that governments, institutions and business must be alert to harnessing AI's benefits and managing the risks of super-intelligent machines that will match or exceed human performance. Assume, he says, that AI systems will rival or outperform humans in almost all cognitive tasks. There will be work a-plenty in devising the ethical constraints, the division of wealth created, the regulatory frameworks. The brightest and the best, he concludes, will be needed to harness AI — and no doubt lawyers will be at the heart of it. Frances Gibb is the former Legal Editor at The Times Oxford University Press £10.99 224pp. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members by Guy Beringer, illustrated by Margaret Beringer Children's books are dismissed by some as being too simple to read — yet Guy Beringer's trilogy proves how wrong that assumption is. Across the volumes readers will encounter a series of daring adventures, unique characters, irony, humour and enlightening descriptions filled with both realistic and fictional elements. Here, children of all ages can explore a fantastic world of woodland creatures whose journeys explore themes from friendship to the complexities of law. In addition, the illustrations by Margaret Beringer, the author's wife, are beautiful, letting little ones' imaginations fly. The first volume, Crossing the Creek, introduces the cast of animal characters and is extremely well thought through and engaging, assuring the narrative is easy to follow. Younger children will need some help reading this, but any difficulty with the vocabulary will boost their learning and understanding of language. Beringer really knows how to incorporate fun and an educational aspect into this volume. In addition to the rich writing, humour plays a great part and shapes the volume, with characters such as the otter or Freddy the Mouse depicted with irony. In Mr Badger's Story, the second volume, Beringer dips into his experience as a lawyer — he is a former senior partner of A&O Shearman, one of the City's 'magic circle' firms — to bring courtroom drama to the table in a humorous manner. He sets about describing the crown court where one of the characters finds itself accused of 'high treason'. Mr Badger does not fully comprehend the situation and this allows Beringer to go into further detail on the law. It provides a clear image for children, yet echoes a child's perspective on the confusing rules that govern the legal world in practice. • 'Criminalising children so young has a massive impact' The last volume, The Riddle of Inow, involves a group on a mission to uncover the truth behind decisions made by Lady/Queen Cosima Crown, ruler of Crow Country — a forbidden territory that is explored in the first volume — to solve a conundrum. This volume completes the trilogy with finesse — and a grand trial. The Tales from Port Navas Creek is one of the most engaging children's trilogies I have read and I particularly enjoyed that it has many legal twists. Alma-Constance Denis-Smith is 14 and co-hosts the Kids Law podcast Published by Troubadour Publishing on September 22 at £14.99 each Times Law will take a three-week break and returns on September 4


The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Love is the key, right?' Evergreen Venus Williams plays on and on at 45
'Still haven't seen the Rolling Stones,' says Venus Williams, smiling, as she reminisced about her unforgettable professional tennis debut at the age of 14 in Oakland, California, an occasion that justified years of hype surrounding her stratospheric potential. Her first ever professional tennis match took place next door to a Rolling Stones concert. Now, 31 years later, at 45 years old, Williams is still here. Three weeks after returning to professional tennis for the first time in 16 months with a straight sets singles victory over the then world No 35 Peyton Stearns at the Citi Open in Washington, which marked her as the second-oldest woman in history to win a WTA Tour-level singles match and also silenced criticisms about her enduring presence on the tour, Williams now takes her comeback to the Cincinnati Open. Once one of the most precocious youngsters of her time, a US Open finalist by the age of 17, Williams continues to compete. She is one of the greatest tennis players of all time in her own right, a seven-time singles grand slam champion, Olympic gold medallist and former No 1 in singles. Despite all she has achieved, her enduring love for her sport means she continues to step on the practice court every day with the aim of being the best player she can be. 'Love is the key, right?' says Williams. 'If you don't love it, then get out of it. If you can, if you have that luxury, not everyone has that luxury. For me, I think a lot of the motivation for me is just to come back and try to play in the best health that I can. 'I never stopped hitting the ball, even when I was away, not as intensely as you would if you were playing tournaments, but I was still going out there. And I think that at the end of the day, you have to live your life on your own terms. Your terms should be yours. Doesn't matter what anyone else says or what anyone else thinks, if you get to live life on your own terms of life, [do] that. And I firmly believe in that.' This comeback, however, is not merely about striking a tennis ball. Last month, Williams revealed she has suffered with fibroids for years, non-cancerous tumours that develop in and around the uterus, which left her with excruciating symptoms including pelvic pain and heavy bleeding. In addition to the significant impact fibroids has had on Williams' everyday life, it also affected her tennis career. She says she had been misdiagnosed for years. Last week, in the aftermath of her returning in Washington, Williams posted a series of videos from exactly a year ago when she was undergoing an open myomectomy surgery to remove the fibroids and a large focal adenomyoma in her uterus, tissue from the lining of the uterus that had grown in her uterine wall. 'I was told I was inoperable,' she wrote. 'I was told I could bleed to death on the table. I was told to get a surrogate and forget the hope to carry my own children. I was misdiagnosed. I went untreated for years and years and years.' As she has returned to the court, Williams has used the publicity around her return to shine a light on women's medical issues. 'I just remember after my surgery, I was feeling so much gratitude but I was able to have the resources to finally get through that, and I remember that was the biggest feeling that I had. And at that point, I was nowhere near playing professional tennis, but now a year later, I'm in a completely different space, and I have a clean bill of health, thank God, and I'm ready to play and compete.' The next competitive challenge for Williams will be the 22-year-old world No 51 Jéssica Bouzas Maneiro. On the day Bouzas Maneiro was born, 24 September 2002, Williams had already won four grand slam singles titles, reached No 1 and contested the previous three consecutive major finals against her younger sister, Serena. The elder Williams sibling said the US swing was the focus for her return and she is unlikely to compete after the US Open. The rest is unknown. 'I'm very much in the moment,' she said. 'I don't think you should ever rule me out. That's all I can say.'