Michael Ymer is suspended from all tennis for 18 months.
That makes SVT expert Magnus Gustafsson see red.
– Totally disrespectful, he says.
It was during Tuesday that the bomb fell; Sweden’s top-ranked tennis player Mikael Ymer has been banned from all professional tennis for 18 months, after failing to report for doping on three occasions in 2022. Ymer was initially acquitted by a jury, but the International Tennis Federation appealed and was upheld.
The words of the expert
During the season, Mikael Ymer has taken enormous steps, and among other things, for the first time in his career he has beaten a top ten player in the world, when he made it to the third round at Wimbledon. But 18 months without tennis will affect him extremely negatively, and he will also lose his points in the world ranking.
SVT expert Magnus “Gusten” Gustafsson now believes that the announcement could cause Ymer to end his career.
– It can end the career. I don’t know what’s going through his head now. Or how people will receive him too. Even though he says he doesn’t care what people think, it can’t go completely unnoticed. Now it is very important that those who have helped him during his career help him extra so he can come back in a year and a half, he says to SVT’s website.
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Great criticism
The expert is amazed at how it could be kept secret for so long, but also directs strong criticism at Ymer, on the question of how to manage to get caught for this type of violation.
– Carelessness and disrespect. He has done a lot of stupid things and statements that I think have been completely off the wall and bad behavior on the tracks. This very fact that he did not take care of his stay reporting is totally disrespectful. Disrespectful to the system we have against doping. Doping is the lowest you can do, I think. But I find it difficult to see Mikael taking doping, he says.
For Magnus Gustafsson, it was a shock when he received the news.
– I was completely taken aback, shocked. It hit me like a bomb. I had no idea about that. Above all, that it happened in January 2022 and that no one has found out, it is very strange.
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