ROME, Italy (AFP) — Jannik Sinner has insisted that he did not receive preferential treatment from anti-doping authorities as he prepares for his return to action at next week’s Italian Open in Rome following a three-month ban which caused anger among a section of the men’s tennis tour.

Sinner heads into his home tournament, the last major event before Roland Garros kicks off next month, with some suspicion that the world number one was treated leniently after twice testing positive for traces of clostebol in March last year.

Both the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), whose exoneration of Sinner was announced in August, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted that he did not gain any competitive advantage from the banned substance, and that he bore no fault for an accidental contamination.

“I’ve been criticized for supposedly being treated differently (to other players who tested positive), but it’s not true,” said Sinner to public broadcaster RAI.

“I’ve had to go to a lot of hearings and they’ve probably tested me more than others.”

“I don’t want to respond to criticism, people are free to say what they want and judge people. What matters to me is that I know what I’ve been through, it was difficult and I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through that as an innocent person.”

Sinner, whose ban ends on Sunday, has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut before providing a massage and sports therapy.

But he was facing a potential two-year ban from tennis before he agreed in February to a three-month suspension with WADA, who had previously appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against his initial exoneration.

WADA said explicitly that Sinner “did not intend to cheat,” but the agreement sparked fury among a section of the men’s tennis tour and even led to high-profile criticism from his compatriot Federica Pellegrini, an Olympic swimming champion.