Mens Tennis Forums banner

Does Tennis need more/stricter testing?

  • yes

    Votes: 351 83.6%
  • no

    Votes: 70 16.7%
Status
Not open for further replies.

Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada IC report published)

587K views 5K replies 580 participants last post by  Chris Kuerten 
#1 · (Edited)
A Short History of Drugs in Tennis
by Michael Mewshaw

The bizarre saga of Richard Gasquet and his conviction for cocaine use grows, as they say in Alice in Wonderland, “curious and curiouser.” To outline the zigzag course of events for those trying to unpack this peculiar story — the Frenchman tested positive in March ‘09 at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. His immediate reaction was utter disbelief. He swore he had never done drugs and added that he knew nobody on the circuit who did coke.
By the time of Roland Garros in late May, Gasquet started amplifying his denial and announced that he intended to appeal the case and overturn his two-year suspension. In an interview with L’Equipe, he admitted that he had violated his normally monastic training routine and gone clubbing in Miami. But he said he had had just a couple of drinks and he suspected somebody must have spiked them. Why? He couldn’t say. Who? He couldn’t guess.

Rafael Nadal rushed to Gasquet’s defense and suggested that his French friend may have kissed a cocaine user. As an excuse, that ranks up there with “the dog ate my homework” or the Twinkie Defense in Harvey Milk’s murder. It led joking reporters to observe that perhaps Gasquet had kissed Martina Hingis, who tested positive for cocaine and retired rather than fight a two-year suspension. But Gasquet refused to go away quietly like the demure Swiss. He vowed to keep battling and by Wimbledon he had discarded the spiked-drink defense and fastened on the cocaine kiss defense. Suddenly he remembered snogging a French girl, Pamela (no last name). Indeed, he kissed her more than once, he maintained. Though never identified, Pamela was said to be a cocaine user by some sources — and a good girl by others. Tennis fans held their breath, waiting for a decision on Gasquet’s appeal.

With all due respect to a player’s right to plead his case, there is for anyone who has followed tennis on a regular basis something wearyingly familiar about this scenario — a positive drug test followed by denials, impassioned appeals to the court of public opinion, as well as to the authorities, and an ever-changing defense. To escape the fog and put things in perspective, let us reflect on a Short History of Drugs in Tennis.

Stimulants have long been popular on the tour. The celebrated diva Suzanne Lenglen braced herself between sets with sips of cognac. Eventually, alcohol in industrial quantities became the drug of choice on the circuit, and hangovers, not overdoses, were the greatest danger. As described in The Romance of Wimbledon, a book by John Olliff, The Daily Telegraph’s tennis correspondent, the ‘21 quarterfinal between Zenzo Shimidzu of Japan and Randolf Lycett of Australia was a drunken fiasco. Played on a blisteringly hot day, the match was deadlocked at a set apiece and 3-3 in the third, when Lycett seemed to suffer sunstroke and had to be revived with gin. Though wobbly, Lycett won the third set, but couldn’t continue without another stimulant — champagne. Apparently, he drank a whole bottle and by the fifth set was staggering and stumbling, falling and crawling around on his hands and knees, searching for his racket. While it’s not surprising that Lycett lost, it may shock some fans to learn that the Aussie wasn’t the last player to quaff champagne on Centre Court. That dubious honor belongs to Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, who split a bottle during a doubles match in the mid-’70s and were seen as jolly good fellows for doing so.

Inevitably, players branched out to other chemically-charged substances. But since there were no tests, users stood little chance of getting caught, and since omertà operated then just as it does now on the circuit, nobody did much more than gossip about the subject. Journalists who witnessed players doing cocaine, for instance, didn’t feel compelled to report it. My friend, Gene Scott, the late publisher of Tennis Week, always defended this practice, explaining that what a journalist saw in a social setting should remain off limits. By that logic, unless a reporter spotted someone snorting lines at a tournament, he should keep his mouth shut.

But then in September ‘80, Yannick Noah broke the silence in an interview with Rock & Folk, the French equivalent of Rolling Stone. While admitting that he smoked hashish, Noah accused other players of using cocaine. What’s more — and in his opinion what was worse — some were popping amphetamines. This infuriated him because it put clean players at a disadvantage. He lamented that they might have to use coke or amphetamines to stay competitive with drug abusers. He wanted the problem to be brought into the open and discussed. If it weren’t, Noah feared there would be deaths from overdoses.
The reaction of tennis authorities and the press was to savage Noah for smoking hashish. His remarks about coke and speed were ignored, as were the players whom he said “take the hit during a tournament and crash afterward. You have guys who have played super during one tournament and who you’ve never seen again.”

He mentioned Victor Pecci by name.

A year later, Arthur Ashe proposed that tennis start testing for drugs. During the ‘82 U.S. Open, Ashe told me that the ATP had “established a relationship with this organization called Comp-Care. Comp-Care will, for free, help you deal with your drug problems anonymously.”

At Ashe’s encouragement, I called Comp-Care to arrange an interview and was referred to Dr. Robert B. Millman, Director of the Drug and Alcohol Abuse program at Cornell University Medical College. A psychiatrist and internist, Dr. Millman said he was treating a variety of professional athletes, including an unspecified number of tennis players. When I asked whether drugs were a problem on the circuit, he answered, “Absolutely.” The money and glamour of the game, he explained, brought players into frequent contact with show biz celebs who were heavy cocaine users. Many players succumbed to peer pressure or turned to drugs to reduce stress.

Dr. Millman said that a few players used heroin, snorting it, not shooting it. He wasn’t convinced that players confined cocaine to recreational use. Though he conceded he couldn’t prove it, he had heard of players taking cocaine for a lift during matches. But for someone who wanted to improve his game dramatically, amphetamines had quicker results. As Dr. Millman put it, “Speed makes you better.” But then, “It makes you worse.”

When I published this interview in my book Short Circuit in ‘83, tennis authorities responded with an across-the-board denial and a series of personal attacks. I was physically removed from the press box at the Italian Open, roughed up and threatened by a tournament director and IMG agent. Tennis authorities dismissed this as a personal matter and took no action.

It wasn’t until the mid-’80s that tennis accepted international standards for drug testing, including out-of-competition testing and sanctions for rule-breakers. But it was too late to deal with a cluster of juiced-up stars. In various books, player memoirs and investigative articles, it has been alleged that John McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitas and Pat Cash, winners of a combined total of 20 Grand Slam titles, used cocaine in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. In the early ‘90s, Karel Novacek tested positive for cocaine.

Some apologists argue that cocaine is a recreational drug, not a performance enhancer. But it’s a stimulant, and that’s why tennis banned it. Other drugs — heroin, ecstasy and a host of other party pills — are not penalized. Unlike other pro sports, tennis seems to have no interest in cracking down on non-performance-enhancing substances, which are both dangerous and illegal. That is, dangerous not just because of potential side effects, but because they force buyers to associate with criminals, opening them up to blackmail. (Think of this in relation to last year’s scandal about betting and match-fixing on the tour.)
By the time the news about cocaine use in tennis broke, the game had more powerful performance enhancers to worry about. Anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, EPO and a witch’s brew of powerful elixirs hit the black market. Aussie Open champ Czech Petr Korda tested positive, as did a gaggle of other Europeans — Stefan Koubek, Karol Beck, Filippo Volandri — and Argentineans Juan Ignacio Chela, Guillermo Canas, Guillermo Coria and Mariano Puerta. The latter two made it to the French Open finals after serving suspensions for drug use. At Roland Garros in ‘05, Puerta had the dubious distinction of testing positive a second time and receiving a career-ending suspension.

As tennis continued to award itself a badge of merit for its drug program, Steffi Graf startled a French Open press conference in ‘94 by announcing that she had never been tested for drugs and that she suspected other women were bulking up on steroids. Subsequently, Gabriela Sabatini threatened legal action when her name kept cropping up in reports about steroid use.

Then in ‘96, Boris Becker speculated that the hyperactive Austrian Thomas Muster must be on something — and the good German got disciplined for his injudicious remarks. Sticking to its policy of punishing the messenger, tennis authorities also cracked down hard in ‘02 on Frenchman Nicholas Escude, who said, just as Noah had done 20 years earlier, that it was obvious when players were juiced. All you had to do was look at their bodies and their eyes. Moreover, Escude charged that some players had tested positive, but the ATP wasn’t revealing the results.

Dismissed at first as a pop-off with no basis for his accusations, Escude was vindicated when it was belatedly revealed that between August ‘02 and May ‘03 seven players had tested positive for nandrolone and 53 others had showed elevated traces for nandrolone or its precursors. Only one of these players was identified — Bodhan Ulirach of the Czech Republic — and he was suspended for two years.

But when a second player came before the tribunal, he argued that he had taken electrolyte replacement pills provided by ATP trainers. Submitting two dozen legal affidavits, the player contended that the electrolyte tablets must have been contaminated with nandrolone. The other players who had tested positive promptly adopted the same defense.

Normally, under the ATP’s policy of strict liability, a player is responsible for whatever is in his system. Even if he ingests a banned substance unknowingly, he is penalized — although the penalty may be reduced if there are extenuating circumstances. But in this instance, because the ATP might have supplied contaminated supplements, the burden of proof switched, and players maintained that it was up to the ATP to prove that the pills weren’t tainted.

The ATP had been offering these products at tournaments for over 20 years with no problems and no complaints. Even so, it analyzed 500 tablets that were believed to have been available at a tournament where positive or elevated tests had occurred. No contaminants were discovered. Then the ATP submitted the remaining jars in its possession for further analysis. Representative samples from these jars revealed no contamination. In short, there was never any scientific proof that the ATP electrolytes were contaminated and no evidence that the players in question had consumed them.

Yet under the legal principle of equitable estoppel, the ATP couldn’t enforce its anti-doping rules unless it was willing to undertake a ruinously expensive court action. As a consequence, Ulirach was retroactively pardoned, even though he had never previously cited electrolyte replacements as a factor in his positive test. The cases against the other six players were dropped.

By mid-May ‘03, the ATP had stopped distributing electrolyte replacements. News of this was widely disseminated in the press, and notices were posted in player locker rooms. More than two months later, however, Greg Rusedski tested positive. Invoking the same defense as previous players, he claimed that the ATP, not he, was responsible. Though there was still no proof that the electrolytes had been contaminated or that Rusedski had ever taken them, and no explanation of how Rusedski had been tainted by supplements that had already been removed from the locker room, the tribunal decreed that his case too deserved to be dismissed.
Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision “preposterous…It defies imagination.”

David Howman, Director General of WADA, pointed out, “It’s unprecedented to have a series of positive results where the individuals have been exonerated and the sport has chosen to fall on its own sword…It undermines the whole principle of the anti-doping program.”

Even the ATP was stunned. David Higdon, then VP of Media Relations, said, “To be honest, we’re surprised…He tested positive and that’s an uncontroverted fact.”

In the first months of ‘04, 16 more players showed elevated test results for nandrolone, with the same analytic fingerprint as the previous positives and elevated negatives. According to the ATP, these players hailed from a dozen different countries, and their test results occurred at tournaments at different times in different parts of the world. Since there was no question now of contaminated ATP supplements, what explained these troubling elevated scores?

No explanation has ever been forthcoming. Except for Ulirach and Rusedski, none of the other players who tested positive for performance enhancers or showed trace amounts in their systems has ever been identified. The ATP has refused to say whether these players were required to have follow-up tests. Tennis fans have no way of knowing whether the six unnamed players won tournaments, perhaps even Grand Slam titles, during the time when they tested positive.

Lest I be accused of sexual discrimination by focusing entirely on men, I should mention that Sesil Karatantcheva tested positive for steroids in ‘06. Showing the same feistiness in court as she does on court, the 15-year-old from Kazakhstan came up with an excuse that more than matched any man’s for pure chutzpah. Where Gasquet demurely fell back on the coke kiss defense, Karatantcheva went all the way and admitted she had been pregnant when she tested positive. Before she could have an abortion, she suffered a miscarriage. This, she contended, must have sparked a riot of hormones that had been mistaken for steroids.
As much as the tribunal may have sympathized with her predicament, it ruled there was no scientific basis to her argument. Now having served a two-year suspension, Karatantcheva is back on the women’s tour, but has shown nowhere near the same level that she displayed before her suspension.

But Gasquet still takes the prize, hands down. Without interviewing Pamela and pinning down the facts of the case — Did she kiss Gasquet? Did she use cocaine? — an independent anti-doping tribunal decided in July ‘09 to reduce Gasquet’s suspension to two-and-a-half months. In effect, the penalty became the time he had already been off the tour.

The ITF has now appealed Gasquet’s successful appeal and asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to re-impose the original two-year ban. What’s more, Pamela has announced that she intends to file a suit against Gasquet for slandering her reputation, violating her privacy and infuriating her boyfriend with false accusations.

Then just when it seemed that the history of drugs in tennis couldn’t get any weirder, Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, appeared, and in addition to revelations about this heavy drinking, it contained an extraordinary confession. Andre admits to using crystal meth, snorting it with a Vegas friend called Slim. What’s more, in ‘97, he tested positive at a tournament and was informed by the ATP that he faced public exposure and suspension. But in a series of flabbergasting moves that seem to foreshadow Gasquet’s case, Andre wrote a letter to the ATP claiming that he had mistakenly drunk one of Slim’s sodas that had been spiked with meth. The ATP accepted Agassi’s bogus plea of innocence, never asking for evidence nor apparently even questioning him or Slim. And of course the public was never told, adding credence to Escude’s accusation that players have tested positive and never been named, much less punished. This admission by Agassi raises a host of questions that his book doesn’t address. But just as clearly it raises serious questions once again about rule enforcement in tennis.

Mewshaw is the author of Short Circuit, as well as Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgarce on the Women’s Tennis Tour

http://www.insidetennis.com/2009/10/short-history-drugs-tennis/

Pretty interesting stuff. The part about the nandrolone positives is quite damning. :eek: Was that a big deal in the early 00's or did it fly under the radar somehow? :scratch:

EDIT:

Drug testing facts:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10349355&postcount=14

Operacion Puerto, drug testing facts and quotes from players and officials:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10442306&postcount=26

Drug testing facts:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10444558&postcount=40

Armstrong's doping doc has tennis links!
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=168510&page=16
 
See less See more
#625 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Of ALL the players on the ATP tour, only 3 are banned for PED's? That seems a shockingly small amount. Players in question:


Filippo Calorosi (Ita)
Dimitar Kutrovsky (Bul)
Ryan Newport (USA)
 
#627 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Out of the above article:
But Guy Forget, who was ranked the fourth best player in the world in 1991, is convinced he played against players who were doping.

He says: "I have lost matches against guys who beat me with an unfair advantage because they were taking drugs.

"When I played there were no controls at all, so why wouldn't you cheat the system."
Forget added: "I don't feel our sport is clean. I am sure now as we speak there are some guys that are cheating. You cannot say tennis is not touched by this poisonous thing.
Australian coach Darren Cahill, who has coached Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi in the past, says on Twitter: "Our testing program is inadequate. That's why no-one can stand up and speak out. It's gone backwards in recent years."
Forget is kinda accusing guys like Edberg, Becker, Lendl, Agassi and Sampras.
 
#628 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Interesting what they say about speed. Anyone who has taken speed will know that it would improve your abilities as a tennis player by miles. The worry I would have about it is its effect on heart rate - I would never take it while playing except with a beta-blocker. Let's be precise about what I mean by 'speed' here - I mean dextroamphetamine.

Crystal meth (ie methamphetamine) is a more potent version of dextroamphetamine - and does not have the same cardiovascular side effects. Crystal meth, IMHO, would be the most effective performance enhancing drug I could think of for tennis. Of course, it wouldn't be as effective as EPO or steroids for increasing strength or endurance. But tennis is not a sport like cycling or running, which are purely physical. What crystal meth would do is improve hand eye coordination and give the taker laser like focus for the whole of a game. Their game would never drop, not for a single point. Imagine Nadal's intensity and multiply it by 10. You would be in the zone for a whole match.

Agassi was caught with this substance in his system. I CANNOT BELIEVE he got a pass on this. He said in his autobiography that it wouldn't be performance enhancing but that was an outright lie. Of course, it wouldn't be a performance enhancer when you're crashing from it but when you're high - nothing more effective.
 
#630 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Don't think we'll ever get the full truth about the cheating in Spain but with the statements this doctor makes it's pretty clear something is very fishy.


Remember when Contador was first accused and certain football players and tennis players came to his support? I think they really wanted to blow it away as dumb accusations and avoid deeper investigations. It was most likely the tip of an iceberg. The sad part is much evidence has probably been lost for good because they are no doubt covering their tracks like crazy following the leaks. But just like the Armstrong case the truth might win out eventually
 
#631 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Don't think we'll ever get the full truth about the cheating in Spain but with the statements this doctor makes it's pretty clear something is very fishy.


Remember when Contador was first accused and certain football players and tennis players came to his support? I think they really wanted to blow it away as dumb accusations and avoid deeper investigations. It was most likely the tip of an iceberg. The sad part is much evidence has probably been lost for good because they are no doubt covering their tracks like crazy following the leaks. But just like the Armstrong case the truth might win out eventually
So, which tennis players were involved/ supported him?
 
#635 · (Edited)
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

The Russian says: "I feel tennis is clean, I do very much. For the amount of times that we get tested throughout the year and as random as they are, definitely."

Tennis great Martina Navratilova, who won 18 Grand Slam titles, accepts doping has taken place in tennis but not a large degree.

She says: "There is very stringent drug testing going on and it has to be done, because there obviously has been some cheating going on as a few people have been caught.

"But overall, I think we have a pretty clean sport. You know that Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal or any of those guys wouldn't do anything like what Lance Armstrong was doing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/21139622

Are they really that naive?
 
#637 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

"The Spanish government has been accused of suppressing evidence linking footballers and tennis stars to a notorious doctor who will go on trial in Madrid next week and has been described as a “one-man Wal-Mart” of doping..."

What does that mean, "who will go on trial in Madrid..."??
 
#638 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Thats the operation puerto trial. The police found hundreds of bags of blood in this guys clinic that belonged to professional athletes.
 
#639 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

There is so much more to Puerto than the public doesnt know. Contador was definitely involved in that whole scheme for sure.
 
#644 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

The reason Armstrong's titles were not reallocated is because everyone cheats in the field. Armstrong is just high profile.
 
#647 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I certainly do find something wrong with supporting someone whilst knowing FULLY what goes in professional cycling. Especially around that time.

Lance was doped and Cantadors times are very similar, coincidence? no..

He knew lance was doping, its a farce.
 
#648 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

also "solidarity" :lol:
 
#651 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

also "solidarity" :lol:
What's so funny about that genius?
 
#652 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

What's so funny about that genius?
Its all just innocent camaraderie of course, not trying to cover their own backs no never :rolleyes:
 
#649 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Man, this whole facade will come down sooner or later. I just wish people stop putting attention on individuals and realize is probably the norm in most high profile sports. And stop judging morally only the athletes, yes they bare responsibility, but is obviously the whole system: General public ( who doesn't care, doesn't care to educate themselves and wants to believe in fairy tales of heroes and villains) The sport's authorities ( who turn a blind eye and don't want to taint their products) and players themselves.

I think it would be helpful also if people didn't antagonized PEDs so much because it mostly obscures the issue, let's learn about them in a scientific way. I mean these drugs are acquired and used by a bunch of nobodies in the local gym just to look good on the beach or with sleeveless shirts. To think that athletes who live out of their bodies won't be taking advantage of something that any smug can use. This whole issue needs to be re-evaluated and stooped being judged by superficial fairy tale terms. Otherwise we will keep getting the charade.
 
#655 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I always felt disgust when Fedtards tried to diminish Nadal's success by saying he was doping, and now the new target is the world #1. I have my own thoughts about censorship though. I agree strongly that idiotic accusations regarding doping deserves a 30-day timeout to think about one's stupidity. If Fed was winning all the slams no one would be saying anything.

Everything else though should be fair game: whether Fed won most of his slams in the weak era, or whether Nole's success is due to surface homogenization etc. Those types of debates allow us to dissect and compare the game over the decades. Accusing someone of murder, theft, bestiality, or doping, without proof, is a capital cyber offence though.

My biggest beef is how people can repeat the same shit over and over. If you're going to be a clown, at least be an original clown and make MTF a little more bearable. I would add to heya's request that the timid be banned, ban the dulltards too.
 
#659 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I always felt disgust when Fedtards tried to diminish Nadal's success by saying he was doping, and now the new target is the world #1. I have my own thoughts about censorship though. I agree strongly that idiotic accusations regarding doping deserves a 30-day timeout to think about one's stupidity. If Fed was winning all the slams no one would be saying anything.

Everything else though should be fair game: whether Fed won most of his slams in the weak era, or whether Nole's success is due to surface homogenization etc. Those types of debates allow us to dissect and compare the game over the decades. Accusing someone of murder, theft, bestiality, or doping, without proof, is a capital cyber offence though.

My biggest beef is how people can repeat the same shit over and over. If you're going to be a clown, at least be an original clown and make MTF a little more bearable. I would add to heya's request that the timid be banned, ban the dulltards too.
As was said earlier, the relaxed doping controls leaves no one exempt from speculation.

To reiterate however, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with speculating with strange occurances/articles as evidence. Its completely totalitarian to ban someone for speculating. Accusations without evidence are of course foolish.
 
#658 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I feel that, given the Armstrong scandal, the cover-up of the Agassi meth stuff and the lack of doping controls in tennis, it is naive to believe that doping doesn't exist. Now we won't know who dopes unless an Armstrong-esque scandal breaks, and I'm not in a position to say who does anyway, but the game is too physical to ignore doping entirely.
 
#668 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I am still flabbergasted that 3 players 3!? are banned on the entire tour.. that shows you how relaxed these measures are. At least cycling is making an effort towards transparency, so many positive tests and bans (and those are just the ones we know about). Sure they are tarnishing the public image in the process, but thats obviously the first step towards building a cleaner sport overall. Got to rebuild it from the ground up. I have no faith in the ATP/ITF controls currently, especially after the Agassi affair. Completely reminiscent of cycling cover ups.
 
#669 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I am still flabbergasted that 3 players 3!? are banned on the entire tour.. that shows you how relaxed these measures are. At least cycling is making an effort towards transparency, so many positive tests and bans (and those are just the ones we know about). Sure they are tarnishing the public image in the process, but thats obviously the first step towards building a cleaner sport overall. Got to rebuild it from the ground up. I have no faith in the ATP/ITF controls currently, especially after the Agassi affair. Completely reminiscent of cycling cover ups.
Cycling is a sport where doping use is much more effective though. With tennis you can have super stamina all you want, if you're not a talented ballstriker you're not going anywhere.
 
#675 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

What are your guys opinions on a level playing field, i.e. EVERYONE doping?
They should randomly test people and evenly distribute the trophies to the players that aren't doping.
 
#680 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

I would be devastated if we were to find out that the top tennis players are doping.

I guess golf is the only clean sport?
Probably. Chess is inundated with dopers.
 
#698 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

id be shocked if federer was on anything

mainly because his insane talent wouldnt be improved by giant muscles and fist pumping

if anything his finesse game never needed egg like stamina anyway

also the reason i (grudingly) have changed my mind about macenroe- who had the finest net touch tennis has ever seen- mac destroyed borg fair and square- and shoulda woulda coulda had that french open final in the bag

i think mac on his best day was probably a better player than borg on his best (not on clay of course)
 
#706 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Q. Do you make use of anything like that pressurized egg chamber which you were known to use at the US Open? Do you have one of
them out here in Australia at all?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: No. No, I don't.
Saying no twice indicates a lie.
 
#707 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

Saying no twice indicates a lie.
the lie is the actual PR trick used in the past to give a reason for his sudden healing and huge physical improvement.

He doesn't want ppl to look around and find out the secret receipy.

I'm really eager to understand what is the magic, except what all the rest do like excessive training, confidence, genetical predispositions, etc.
 
#709 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof)

So if the secret trick to recovery isnt the Egg then what is it? :confused:
it's not necessarily doping.

Might be smth new, somekind of natural mixture or whatever, donkey cheese, new training method, no idea, that's why i'm really eager to understand .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top