Andy Murray Suspicious Of Players Who Don’t Get Tired, Boris Becker Hits Back On Doping Claims
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Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic’s coach, Boris Becker, are at odds over allegations the Scot made. Murray spoke to the Daily Mail last week and urged authorities to step-up its war on doping.
“I have played against players and thought, ‘They won’t go away’ or ‘They don’t seem to be getting tired’,” Murray told the paper. “Have I ever been suspicious of someone? Yeah. You hear things.
“It’s harder to tell in our sport as people can make big improvements to a stroke or start serving better because they have made technical changes. If it’s purely physical and you’re watching someone playing six-hour matches over and over and showing no signs of being tired, you’d look at that.”
In reference to when players have to go through the multi-month process to state their case following a positive test, Murray also said that “silent bans” needs to be banned.
“If someone is going through that process, the tennis world should let people know and, as far as I’m aware, they are changing that rule now,” Murray added. “If someone is serving that suspension period or the period where they are arguing it or trying to come to conclusions what the sentence is going to be, that is going to become public knowledge.
“So you’re not going to have silent bans or someone saying they were injured. That happened with Croatia’s Marin Cilic, where he pulled out of Wimbledon injured. People started talking and then it came out that he had failed a drugs test. And that looks terrible.”
Becker has since responded to Murray’s claims.
“We have random drug testing and unless it’s proven, they are 100% innocent,” Becker told the Mail. “So to throw in a curve ball and assume something because somebody has won a Grand Slam or is fitter I think is totally out of order.
“It’s a very dangerous subject. I can only repeat that tennis is clean. I believe 100% Andy is clean,” Becker said. “Roger is clean, Rafa (Nadal) is clean, Stan (Wawrinka) is clean, all these guys are clean.
“There was always a suspicion of Rafa and I find that so unbelievably disrespectful about one of greatest players of all time,” he said.
“I can only speak for Novak and believe me he gets tested a lot! That can mean twice in a Grand Slam.
“In Melbourne he got tested in the first week and the second week. He would be playing a match at night and somebody comes to his hotel room at 7am to do a urine test and I think, ‘how dare you.’ But those are the rules.”
Murray and Becker won’t be together again until Madrid next month.
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