Cilic Trying To Get Failed Drug Test Overturned

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 13th September 2013

Cilic Trying To Get Failed Drug Test Overturned

epa03744490 Marin Cilic of Croatia returns the ball to Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic during their quarter final match of the Aegon Tennis Championships at the Queen's Club in London, Britain, 14 June 2013. EPA/ANDY RAIN |

While Croatia began their attempt to remain in the Davis Cup’s World Group in Umag, the nation’s leading player Marin Cilic was ironically in London to present his appeal against the results of a failed anti-doping test in Munich nearly five months ago.

Cilic has not played competitively since withdrawing after the first round of Wimbledon, when he cited a knee injury. Several weeks later the Croatian media reported several weeks the 24 year-old who then stood at no.12 in the world ranking had failed the BMW Open in Munich.

Now Croatia’s Davis Cup captain Zeljko Krajan has revealed Cilic’s whereabouts while the rest of the Croatian team prepare to take on Andy Murray and Great Britain in Umag. “I am not authorized to say anything about Cilic’s situation apart from that he is in London and tomorrow he has the appeal,” said Krajan as he announced the Croatian team at Thursday’s draw.

It is believed that Cilic will tell the legal-style tribunal headed by a Queen’s Counsel High Court judge that he sent his mother out to buy a glucose supplement while playing at the Monte Carlo Open at the start of the European clay court season in mid-April.

Cilic, a Monte Carlo resident for several years, had been taking another legal glucose supplement but is expected to admit that he did not read an enclosed warning on the new supplement purchased by his mother that it also included a small amount of a substance on the athletes’ banned list. The results showed up in the Munich test taken two weeks later.

According to leading British player Murray everyone in the Wimbledon locker room knew Cilic’s Wimbledon withdrawal was down to the failed drugs test rather than a knee injury that tied in with the spate of other pull-outs in the Championships’ first few days, attributed to slippery court conditions.

Murray expressed his frustration over the damage the Cilic rumor and innuendo has done to the sport. In line with ITF policy there has been official silence which will continue until the appeal judgment is handed down.

According to ITF protocols any positive test is followed by a hearing, which is usually staged around three months later to allow both sides to prepare their cases. The idea is that, if the player is found not guilty, it should be as if the positive test has never happened, to avoid besmirching their reputation.

“I think it’s about time everyone knew what was going on,” said Murray, the third ranked Scot. “Everyone knows what’s happening and he has clearly failed a drugs test, I just don’t know why that can’t come out.

“It’s not that he’s injured. I don’t get that. Once it’s out in the open then whether the hearing took two months or four months, so long as he isn’t playing in that period – I think it’s too long for nobody to say he has failed a drugs test.”

Cilic’s unfortunate mistake is similar to that of Scottish skier Alain Baxter, who tested positive for methamphetamine during the 2002 Winter Olympics after using an American version of the Vicks inhaler – a version with different contents to the one he was used to back in Britain.

Topics: 10sballs, Andy Murray, Davis Cup, Itf, Marin Cilic, Sports, Tennis, Wimbledon