Tennis to step up drug fight in light of Lance Armstrong scandal

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Lance Armstrong's admission that he took drugs to help him win all seven of his Tour de France titles has put performance enhancing substances in the spotlight.
Now tennis has been brought into the debate with former world number four Guy Forget claiming he was beaten by rivals who took drugs.
Three players - Ryan Newport from the United States, Bulgarian Dimitar Kutrovsky and Italian Filippo Calorosi - are currently suspended from playing for taking drugs and Forget believes they are not the only men on the circuit guilty of doping.
BBC Sport speaks to current and ex players, coaches and officials in charge of testing to try and discover if tennis has a drug problem.

Drugs in tennis

The Men's Tennis Council began drug testing in the late 1980s with the focus mainly on recreational drugs. The testing was extended to include performance-enhancing drugs when the ATP Tour was formed in 1990.

Guy Forget claims he played against rivals who had taken drugs
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.
"For sure, it has happened. I can look at myself in the mirror knowing I have never taken anything.
"When I played there were no controls at all so why wouldn't you cheat the system."

The situation now

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) now leads a unified Tennis Anti-Doping Programme applying across all tennis events.
The ITF carried out 131 blood tests both in and out of competition in 2011, the last year for which figures are available. That was alongside 2,019 urine tests.
Now the ITF are planning to introduce an athlete biological passport (ABP) which allows officials to collect and compare biological data and spot variances that suggest doping.
“
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
”
Maria Sharapova
It is an improvement many in the game believe is needed.
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.
"I think it is a minority probably, but that is why Roger Federer and the other guys says we should put more money into blood test and controls because we should fight this any way we can."
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."
Current world number one Novak Djokovic recently complained the number of blood tests he has undergone has dropped in the last year.
He said: "I wasn't tested with blood for last six, seven months. It was more regularly in last two, three years ago. I don't know the reason why they stopped it."

Fighting back

Dr. Stuart Miller, who oversees the ITF's anti-doping programme, claims education as much as detection is the best way to cure the problems of drugs in sport.
But he is an advocate of plans to bring in an ABP to make it easier to find the drug cheats.
Miller says: "We think we can improve by introducing what is known as the athlete biological passport, which is a blood-based testing programme which allows you to establish individual baseline parameters.
"That is not in operation at the moment. But we're looking very, very closely at it and I think that there's a reasonably good chance that that will be operational probably towards the end of 2013.
"It takes a long time to set up. There's a number of constraints and conditions that you have to satisfy, you can't just turn a switch."
What is a athlete biological passport
An ABP is an electronic document about the athlete that contains certain biomarkers from through his career.

If these markers change dramatically from the historic levels it alerts officials that the athlete might be doping.

Miller went on to answer Forget's complaints.
"I think we need to put a couple of things into context," he said. "Firstly I think Forget answered his own question when he said back at the time when he was playing, anti-doping was very different.
"There was no such thing as the World Anti-Doping Agency, there was no list of prohibited substances that all the sports signed up to and actually tennis was one of the pioneering sports in introducing anti-doping testing back in Forget's time.
"Granted, it was for a different list of prohibited substances - it was mainly recreational substances - and he's right, there wasn't as much testing, but tennis was pioneering at that particular time. And it's come a long way since that time, when he was playing."

Is tennis clean?

The leading players have thrown their support behind initiatives to weed out rivals who use drugs to enhance their performance but many are content that the sport is not on a par with the level of doping that has been uncovered in cycling.
World number three Andy Murray says: "I think all sports are trying to improve their doping controls.
"If that's more blood testing or the biological passports, that's something we need to do and improve in tennis, as well.

The three men currently banned for drug taking
Filippo Calorosi (Ita)
Dimitar Kutrovsky (Bul)
Ryan Newport (USA)

Four time grand slam winner Maria Sharapova is confident she is competing on a level playing field.
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.
"I think tennis is doing a pretty good job, at least from what I see."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/21139622

not sure about this one. thoughts?

I am sure that if, say Nadal was doping, guys like Ferrer, Juan Monaco would know about it. But I dont see Olivier Rochus, for instance, would.

Like I said, if doping is a part of the culture, then it isnt really a jump. But tennis is such a skill-sport, even in its physicality, that I dont think thats the case.

I was speaking to Robbie Hunter (Top SA cyclist) a few months back (in my professional capacity, I am a junior sports reporter) after another local cyclist was caught doping, and he was telling me that he would never dope as cycling has given him his life, and he couldnt bear to risk losing everything doping. He did say that he made peace with the fact that that he lost out on a lot due to dopers placing in front of him, though. So I get your pessimism as a cyclist.

Take the Oscar Pistorious case: due to professional cpurtesy I cant disclose name, but the amount of people who came to the office claiming that they personally knew OP was doping would shock you. But he got tested, both urine & blood (cant get more random testing than his situation) and he tested negative. Didnt even have a syringe or dodgy pill in his house.
I dont treat doping as a myth, all I saying is dont believe that a guy is doping just because a fellow pro said it.

How do you know they dont know?
Also say if someone did dope on their own to gain an advantage, nobody else would know right? They wouldn't see it happening and they may not be told.

Fair enough but again i disagree. Think of the money there is to gain in any sport by winning. Anybody will look to take an advantage, for me its just the world we live in, cut throat, win at all costs, Citius, Altius, Fortius!

Kudos there man, thats awesome!
I would love to ask Robbie so many questions. Would you see him again?

Couple of things btw. One hunter was on the phonak, floyd landis team so im sorry but i dont really believe what he said.
He has been around a long time, he was there during LA's pomp.
I could be wrong but he would deffo be in the minority and just scared to speak out on the omerta.

As you can see im very pessimistic about this sport and doping.

he doesnt train in RSA, nor reside here anymore, and we dont have too many races that would entice him yet, so I couldn't possibly timeline it.

The thing is LS, in SA, the sporting community is very small. So everybody knows a few people. I could tell you now I've been offered a doobie by a few pros at clubs.

But I think its always difficult to look at sports as fair until someone you really know makes it. For me it is Quinton de Kock. A reasonably good mate of mine who is currently playing for the national cricket.

Interesting to hear your thoughts from SA.
I'm half south african btw got more family there than i do here!
Favourite place in the world is cape town, fell in love with it on my sole visit back in '04. I will go back ..... one day/

I like Cape Town, but the white people are pretty racist, to be honest, while black Capetonians are hectic tribalists, so coming from the completely opposite side of SA, I cant really reciprocate the love people. But its really beautiful, though

I prefer the highveld. Great people, much more vibrant, more cosmopolitan. I have like the most linguistically diverse group of friends ever. We counted 15 different first languages.

Must say, I still think tennis is better than other sports. Basketball, where height is almost a requirement, is only gonna start testing for HGH next season

dont get me started on some of the american sports, they are beyond a joke.

Haha NFL players on average live up to 55, I once heard. That in a sentence is why I could never accept.a push to legalise doping.

kingraf

Former pro cyclists aren't exactly noted for their longevity either - not that many of them make it much past 60. Now how much of that is down to doping (and noting that the EPO generation hasn't reached 50 yet, so this is the guys who were taking amphetamines etc), and how much is down to the physiological demands is an unanswerable question.

Expanding on my point earlier, I think a lot of sports governing bodies are quite happy to see cycling and one or two other sports getting dragged through the mud regarding doping, while at least having little incentive to clean up their own sport. Tennis definitely doesn't lift too many stones or rattle many cages in an attempt to find out what is going on regarding players doping, although at least it puts in enough effort to make it look serious - not something that can be said for every mainstream sport.

That is the key.
Make it SEEM that you are trying, that will suffice.
I for one am not a fan of the passport.

There is a biological theory that you are born with say 300 million heartbeats. If you choose to play stressful sport then you'll simply use them up quicker...plus the cortisol levels induced will shorten your life as well. Playing most pro sports to the highest level isn't usually a healthy lifestyle as weird as that sounds.

I have heard of the theory. I cant say I buy it though.

*wheels out old Laver*

I can see how the cortisol may have an effect, but during the 2010 Ashes, it showed most cricketers having a heartrate of 100+ in game, yet historically (in South Africa at least) these guys refuse to kick the bucket.