Players to be allowed to pick their own times for drug tests
ATP
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has been allowing tennis players to schedule drug testing appointments.
In an investigation report by the Mail in the UK, tennis players were at liberty to select the time of their choosing at this year's Miami Open to undergo doping tests.
The tennis watchdog believes that this strategy makes a "big difference" in nabbing drug cheaters who go undetected. Moreover, players were reportedly given advance notice of when they would be blood tested at both the 2019 Roland Garros and the US Open.
The exercise at the Miami Open was done online, whereby players were "invited" to book their slots for drug testing, with some getting leniency of up to four days to honor this assignment.
One of the messages sent to the players that the Daily Mail managed to retrieve from Nicole Sapstead, who is now the director of the ITF's anti-doping program, read, "Appointments to provide your ABP sample will be between 09:00 and 18:00 on each day (between 19-22nd March 2022) and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis."
Although this method has been criticized by several heads in charge of maintaining the integrity of the sport, the ITF is convinced it will carry out more tests because of scheduled testing.
“The aim is to gather data from as many players as possible so we have the widest set of data to work from. Logistically it makes sense therefore to arrange this in advance once or twice a year, so we can test as many players as we can."
“Because we do this ABP testing on an ongoing basis - both with notice and no-notice - it does not make any difference if players know about it in advance. Adverse levels will show, either with this test or through in-competition or out of competition testing.”- International Tennis Integrity Agency said in a statement
