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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
 
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#2,515 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Tsonga blasts)

People can be so ridiculously naive concerning a lot things to do with tennis. For instance the recent Nadal cutting his finger on a knife incident. I bet some of his fans are even naive enough to believe Toni or someone else in the Nadal camp didn't leak that to the press, despite it happening in his private time!

Similarly there are clearly going to be players who dope and their fans would defend them even if evidence did come to light. Of course we cannot say who is or who isn't, I don't think we can rule out anyone being a doper.
 
#2,517 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Tsonga blasts)

People can be so ridiculously naive concerning a lot things to do with tennis. For instance the recent Nadal cutting his finger on a knife incident. I bet some of his fans are even naive enough to believe Toni or someone else in the Nadal camp didn't leak that to the press, despite it happening in his private time!
You make zero sense here. Blaming someone on naivety based on your own conspiracy theory.
 
#2,521 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Tsonga blasts)

I highly doubt Fed, Rafa and or Novak have ever doped.

I don't think people have ever watched these guys practice. They put 200% into their practices and don't slack around.

Although I think some Spanish players do seem suspect.
 
#2,522 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Tsonga blasts)

I highly doubt Fed, Rafa and or Novak have ever doped.

I don't think people have ever watched these guys practice. They put 200% into their practices and don't slack around.

Although I think some Spanish players do seem suspect.
I don't follow this line of arguing. First of all, you can't seriously be implying that all the other guys are just not training enough right? Second, no matter how much you train, the human body can only sustain so much. The stamina and recovery rate of alot of players, not just the three you mentioned, are incredibly suspicious to me.

But whether there are just an absurd amount of physical freaks running around in tennis or they are in fact doping, will remain a mystery (and thus a big debate) as long as the ITF has its head up its own ass.
 
#2,525 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Tsonga blasts)

Funny that if you even mention the name Nadull in here you're on the ban list but if you directly state you think Federer is doping, more power to you. Probably not the mods' fault, Nadull is the one with an army of ATP lawyers with something to hide but it's still a double standard. And no, not going to report as last time I did that I was the one who ended up banned :mad:
 
#2,532 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

................

On the first of November 2007, Martia Hingis announced that she tested positive for cocaine during her participation at Wimbledon 2007, she denied taking any drugs in her career and to this day has maintained that she is 100% innocent.....

Hingis voluntarily took a hair test which showed a negative result for cocaine, but referring to the WADA' rules, the ITF Tribunal ruled out that hair tests be used as counter evidence...

Article 5.2.4.4 of WADA's International Standard for Laboratories:

"Any testing results obtained from hair, nails, oral fluid or other biological material shall not be used to counter Adverse Analytical Findings or Atypical Findings from urine".

Hingis spent about $500,000 in legal costs to present her case to the ITF Tribunal.

After the Tribunal found her guilty of a doping offense and announced her two years banishment, she didn't appeal the ban decision depending on advice from her lawyers who told her an appeal could take years and lots of money.

Her sample contains a 42ng/ml of a cocaine metabolite. This is such a minute trace that it wouldn't trigger a positive result had a test been administered by the US Military.

...Richard Gasquet's sample contains 151ng/ml (almost 4 times more than that of Hingis).

From an article by Aaress Lawless (onthebaseline.com): "Unfortunately, for Hingis, the very locale where the drug test was administered has become a cocaine residue breeding ground.....

The UK's Telegraph reported in 2005 that London's Thames River was awash in cocaine, as over 80,000 lines of the recreational drug were smoked each day. Cross contamination has permeated through the water, restrooms and even bank notes".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3325948/The-Thames-awash-with-cocaine.html

In her case the ITF Tribunal refused to use the hair test as counter evidence, depending on the WADA's rules.

...The rule hasn't been changed, but they allowed a hair test in the Gasquet's case.

Hingis was banned for two years.
Gasquet was banned for 2 & 1/2 months.

From an article by Jon Wertheim (CNN/SI):

"Though never directly attributed to the peculiarities of her case, curiously, in the months after her hearing, rules were altered and administrators were given latitude to dispense suspensions of any length...from zero to two years".

Why didn't they revisit her case after they had altered the rule?

The ITF Tribunal limited Gasquet's banishment to 2 & 1/2 months based on evidence that was not allowed at the Hingis ITF Tribunal, such as a hair follicle test, and consideration of his character....

Billie Jean King submitted written testimony on Hingis' good character at her trial, and it was ignored by her Tribunal.
 
#2,538 ·
WTF....so if a hair test is supposed to be more accurate, why did the normal test register a positive? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
what the hair test shows is a History of using drugs as it would be integrated throughout the hair shaft. so a negative hair test shows that the person is not a habitual drug user - it's like those soil core samples scientists collect to look at weather, pollution, etc over time (eons). I don't know how much of something must be in the system to be seen in the hair.
 
#2,535 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

The hair test will be more of an historical record, while a urine sample will be very transitory. You will probably be able to spot smaller quantities of a drug (taken by an individual) in a urine sample, but only if you happen to take the sample at the very right time. It's going to depend on the nature of each drug too and will be more helpful for some.

Overall, it's good news. I can't see it replacing blood and urine samples, but it's an extra line of evidence, and that's got to be a good thing.
 
#2,537 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

The hair test will be more of an historical record, while a urine sample will be very transitory.
That's probably the general future focus for testing anyway: physiological values over time, rather than just one point in time.

Does give the lawyers a lot more to argue over though, since there's far more interpretation involved.
 
#2,536 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Who cares...It doesn´t matter what methodologies they use, as long as there is no genuine intent on catching the dopers. Who cares if they use pubic hair for testing, as long as any possible positive results are buried and covered up.

Actually I´m being a bit too harsh, I´m sure they will catch some journeyman ranked 175 for taking too many pain killers...
 
#2,540 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

So, in theory, if they take some hair, they would know every drug I've ever done?

Shit.
 
#2,541 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

So, in theory, if they take some hair, they would know every drug I've ever done?

Shit.
Not "ever". Human hair grows about 6 inches per year, give or take an inch. So anything you took a year ago impacted the part of your hair that was growing at that moment. If you had long hair, it'd still be there, but I see you keep yours short, so by now it has been cut away. ;)

Some people shave their heads prior to drug tests. ;) though someone once told me they can use the hairs from any part of your body. Hope you don't have 6-inch long pubes. :tape:
 
#2,544 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

hair (loss) is the key me thinks.
 
#2,546 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Since when has being high achieving from the very start of your career ever been a good indicator of whether a player dopes or not? Such a lame excuse.
 
This post has been deleted
#2,551 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

dal is tested the most for a reason i guess :scratch:
 
#2,554 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

We can argue all day about which tests are more accurate, but ultimately I do not think a top player would be given up if they were doping. Look how long Lance Armstrong's doping went unnoticed. I am not claiming any top players are doping but hypothetically if they were, especially the star names, I have no reason to believe it would be revealed as it would damage the sport too much. That is the real issue here.
 
#2,555 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

We can argue all day about which tests are more accurate, but ultimately I do not think a top player would be given up if they were doping. Look how long Lance Armstrong's doping went unnoticed. I am not claiming any top players are doping but hypothetically if they were, especially the star names, I have no reason to believe it would be revealed as it would damage the sport too much. That is the real issue here.
Yep.
 
#2,557 · (Edited)
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair



Year and a half old, but just came across it. Former doping kingpin Victor Conte saying he used to work with Chang, Lendl, Rusedski and Sharapova @ 34:30 :devil:

I would advice watching the whole thing, pretty amazing interview.
 
#2,561 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair



Year and a half old, but just came across it. Former doping kingpin Victor Conte saying he used to work with Chang, Lendl, Rusedski and Sharapova @ 34:30 :devil:
Yeah, I remember this. Not really surprising tbh, doping became widespread at the top of all sports in the 80s, there's no reason to suspect tennis is any different.

If you listen again, he's not being terribly clear, but he's talking about a specific trainer who worked with the four above, not himself. I know who that is - he's worked with a ton of current players at the Bollettieri academy, and as a personal trainer for a pile of others.
 
#2,559 · (Edited)
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Foregoing their locks?
Seems some have already experimented...

Viktor Troicki Oct 2010


Novak Djokovic - December 2010


Fernando Verdasco - July 2011


Andy Murray April 2012


Feliciano Lopez Jan 2014


----------------------------------------------------------


...while others have not felt the need


Roger Federer July 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


Rafael Nadal June 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013



Respectfully,
masterclass
 
#2,563 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

I cannot wait for Tennis to have it's own Festina/Puerto. It's coming.
 
#2,564 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Heh. Tennishasasteroidproblem not exactly a Nadal fansite. To pick one of the few posts that would be permitted on MTF:

It's not just finesse, with nadal you don't even need a net, as all the topspin makes the ball go into orbit before coming back down to hit the lines. He should try volleyball after his tenniscareer
 
#2,565 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Rumours about a new superdrug in Sochi. MGF, 'untracable' according to WADA with current methods, highly effective muscle enhancer, only an injection needed two or three days before the match/game. German TV journalists pretending to need the drug easily obtained this at a cost of about 100,000 euros for a single athlete.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/5356/Dopin...onopspoorbare-superdoping-voor-in-Sochi.dhtml

Could it be used in tennis as well?
 
#2,566 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Rumours about a new superdrug in Sochi. MGF, 'untracable' according to WADA with current methods, highly effective muscle enhancer, only an injection needed two or three days before the match/game. German TV journalists pretending to need the drug easily obtained this at a cost of about 100,000 euros for a single athlete.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/5356/Dopin...onopspoorbare-superdoping-voor-in-Sochi.dhtml

Could it be used in tennis as well?
Of course. It's :bs: when one says doping doesn't help in tennis.
 
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