ITF 2014 Doping Report: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic Tested Over 14 Times, Nadal Over 11

Nadal is guilty and a cheat is the conclusion I draw from this. Right gang?

February 4th, 2015 at 9:31 am

Such transparency!

Please, ITF, answer these questions:

Why are the number of tests given in ranges? 1-3? 4-6? Why not just say the player was tested 1 time or 3 times? What’s the point?

What’s with the 7+ cutoff? Why don’t the ranges continue with 7-10 and 11-14 or something? Does 7+ mean 7 or 12 or 25? Who knows?

What kind of tests were they? We know they were tested 7+ times but were they all urine tests? All blood tests? 50/50? Why is this not provided?

February 4th, 2015 at 10:09 am

Sure looks like Nadal has been captured as opinion is that time out for injury is in fact a ban being enforced but because of the fine upstanding nature of the game it just isn’t the done thing to be totally transparent.. Cheating is a massive problem in the game from doping to bribes to throw games… Mentioning no names….Molchanov

February 4th, 2015 at 10:36 am

@Darren: agree. He spent 7 months silent ban pre 2013. And word on the street is he’s just spent time off due to the blood passport. He’s a cheat and you can only run so much when you’re like that. Mr Steroids is not fooling us, with wise minds like yourself around. One love.

February 4th, 2015 at 11:05 am

Considering that David Goffin went on a long win streak in the smaller events last year, I’m surprised he didn’t get tested more than 1-3 times. (I’m in no way saying that Goffin is doping – just that players who win a lot should be tested more often).

February 4th, 2015 at 11:22 am

The members of this esteemed forum are not driven by numbers. They are driven by big egos of themselves and their heroes.

February 4th, 2015 at 1:57 pm

He spent 7 months silent ban pre 2013.
—
Idiots will be idiots. Can’t help you unless you help yourself.

February 4th, 2015 at 1:59 pm

What has Nadal done to be constantly suspected for doping by so many losers on tennis forums? Is it because he is a threat to Federer as the GOAT? Is it because he is hispanic? He has been a pro for 12 years & not even once has there been a doping case against him. The guy is as clean as a whistle and yet so many pathetic losers keep accusing him of doping. It makes me laugh to see the level of stupidity and ignorance out there! :-)

February 5th, 2015 at 10:45 am

I agree kamret. These same morons also never, ever accuse Novak Djokovic of doping, even though if anyone is, he is the most likely culprit. He languished behind Fed and Nadal for years until he suddenly came out of nowhere in 2011, winning everything in sight. This is the same guy who outlasted Nadal in the heat and humidity of Miami in the 2011 final, after having retired the AO 09 due to heat exhaustion. He also went from sucking wind like a fish out of water to never getting tired in a match since his miraculous increase in stamina in 2011. These Fedtards would not give a damn about Nadal if he weren’t close to Fed’s slam record and a constant thorn in Fed’s side. Maybe once Dopovic gets close to Fed’s slam count these permanent virgins will finally realize they have been pointing their finger at the wrong guy the whole time.

February 5th, 2015 at 12:51 pm

Regarding Nadal, there are undoubtedly many fans of opposing players who WANT to believe (for their own selfish reasons) that he uses PEDs, but there is certainly ample support for that suspicion.

It is easy to suspect him because he clearly exhibits a very common pattern of PED users, which is that of repeatedly fluctuating between periods extremely high performance and periods of time off due to various joint/tendon injuries. That pattern, however, is of course not necessarily indicative of anything.

The same could be said about Serena; just substitute weird injuries/clotting.

Personally, I don’t know what to think. I want to believe in the best of people, and, although I am not a fan per se, I happen to like Nadal. I do find it somewhat annoying, though, that he and Serena (literally the two players that I would personally, from a distance, see the most cause to suspect) were tested least of their similarly ranked peers. I understand this is due to time not spent participating on tour, but to me that points to an issue with the current testing protocol.

*seeks the nearest bomb shelter*

February 5th, 2015 at 6:59 pm

@Kamret: great post Kamret. It is a old, historic adage that a individual is innocent until proven guilty. That too really exists as a principle in the court when a charge has been leveled against a individual. But in Nadal’s case, a individual who turned professional in 2001, the following: 1- he’s never ever been charged with anything 2- he’s never ever been investigated for anything as there has been no cause founded to investigate 3- he’s never ever had any incriminating evidence leveled against him in 14 years as a professional. And yet some continue to level accusations against him even they are baseless, lacking in evidence. Essentially: it’s a a case of suspicious minds speculating. And those suspicious minds also happen to be strong detractors of Nadal the player. The real truth is: they rather hate on him via the notion of believing he’s a cheat than give credit to him for the superb player he is. Thankfully for Nadal: 99% of the tennis community recognizes and appreciate what a player he is.

February 5th, 2015 at 7:28 pm

I fully agree with you guys. Nadal was on a silent ban. His injury that he claimed to have does not take that long to recover from. I actually went and asked a physiotherapist to see and on average it takes a month. ATP has been hiding this stuff to keep the sport in good reputation. Look at Agassi with him won’t caught with drugs and they kept or hidden. Look at that lower ranked player that got pulled over in Australia with sports enhancing drugs. He had ten times more than what he could use for himself only for the intention to sell or be used as a mule because he probably made more money than his first round loss. Lol. Drugs are in sports. Tennis is no exception. Anyone on here that says no way to that they r not doing these drugs need to take the blinders off.

February 6th, 2015 at 3:04 am

Nadal is like the New England Patriots of tennis.

Once a CHEAT, always a CHEAT !

February 9th, 2015 at 2:36 pm

Thought you might be interested in some more analysis of the ITF stats here. https://cleaningthelines.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/38-analysis-of-the-itfs-2014-anti-doping-programme/

For me, 2014 was further improvement on 2013 with more out-of-competition testing. More needs to be done outside of the top 50 but otherwise, not bad at all.

February 15th, 2015 at 4:02 pm

ITF is lying. Not about the player’s being tested and how many times but about hiding the fact that they pre warn players like Novak, Rafa, Ferrer and Murray so that they can take measures to flush it out of their system ahead of time.

April 3rd, 2015 at 8:53 am

Well, it is good that the ITF are reporting this. Problem is, it’s like the crime survey. You can only go on the information that is recorded and not unrecorded. You can get whatever you want to get from the statistics. But they do not give the whole scenario.

It’s an impossible result they give. Going back to what Ben says, why stop at 7+?

Why not be more precise?

April 3rd, 2015 at 10:33 am