Tsonga Asks For Clarity In Drug Action

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 30th October 2013

Tsonga Asks For Clarity In Drug Action

epa03913890 France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga returns the ball to Germany's Daniel Brands during their second round match at the Erste Bank Open ATP tennis tournament in Vienna, Austria, 17 October 2013. EPA/HERBERT PFARRHOFER |

As Marin Cilic made winning comeback to ATP World Tour action after a shortened ban for breaking anti-doping regulations, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga made an impassioned plea at the BNP Paribas Paris Masters for added clarity on the most talked about issue in tennis.

Following the Cilic ban, shortened last week by the Court of Arbitration for Sport from nine months to four, and Viktor Troicki’s pleas of innocence after receiving an 18 month suspension for failing to complete an anti-doping test, the leading players are becoming exasperated.

And Tsonga, who announced he is now sharing coaches Nicolas Escude and Thierry Ascione with fellow French player Nicolas Mahut, highlighted his message on the tenuous anti-doping situation by saying: “Everybody is lying.”

World no.9 Tsonga maintained the players are desperate for guidance from both the ATP World Tour and the International Tennis Federation. “We don’t know what is true, what is not true,’ said the 28 years-old.

“Personally I just don’t know who I believe anymore. Everybody is lying, even the institutions. I don’t know if it is true but this is the feeling I have.

Those who are testing us I feel are not always saying the truth, so with all these things we don’t even know where the truth lies.”

The Cilic case highlights one particular loophole that requires clearing up. The Croatian admitted he felt like a child playing in his first match as he beat Dutch qualifier Igor Sijsling 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.

But he got considerably more serious when saying: “I would definitely say it was the worst time of my life to experience this as a player.

“To be in that kind of situation, where I found out about the positive test and the media started to write, it was an extremely difficult situation. People were calling me a doping player and a cheater.

“I knew I didn’t cheat and the most important thing was I hadn’t taken anybody’s prize money and I hadn’t beaten anybody in that tournament.”

Although the full CAS judgment has yet to be published, Cilic said the reduction of his ban was down to the fact that it emerged there that the amount of Nikethamide – contained in what he insists he thought was a glucose supplement – was so negligible it was only a metabolite trace.

A key factor is that Nikethamide is actually allowed to be taken out of competition but not during.

Cilic said: “There was no Nikethamide in my system at all, and that was not even part of the conversation at the first hearing. I don’t know, either it was a mistake or negligence from somebody but definitely it could have had a huge impact on me.

“In the end, the only part that was found in my system was the metabolite, which is completely inactive.”

Topics: 10sballs.com, Atp, Atp World Tour, Bnp Paribas, Itf, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Marin Cilic, Nicolas Escudé, Nicolas Mahut, Paris Masters, Tennis, Tennis News, Thierry Ascione, Viktor Troicki