Does it feel like there’s a tennis player popping up in the news every week who’s embroiled in a doping scandal? Probably because they are.

So, what’s the dope on doping? Why all the scandals, and why all of a sudden?

Recent Scandals

On Monday, the International Tennis Federation banned 23-year old Karol Beck, who has tested positive for a banned substance. His case was originally leaked to the press by Slovak Federation General Secretary Igor Moska who met with reporters a few weeks ago. Moska said he was aware of the positive test last year but he did not say which substance was involved. “I have known about this for quite some time. I believe the substance was taken unknowingly,” he said.

Beck had denied failing a dope test at the Davis Cup final in December against Croatia, though Moska told a press conference, “Karol Beck had a positive doping test after last year’s semi-final match of the Davis Cup against Argentina.

Beck’s highest career-ranking was 36 in August 2005, and has yet to win a title on the ATP tour. He is currently ranked 76th in the world, and received a two-year ban which he says he’ll appeal.

Is it possible Beck took something without knowing it? What advantage would a player outside the top echelon hope to gain with doping that he would risk his career?

There are alot more questions we could ask.

Let’s step back in time for a second. The most high-profile case of doping in tennis occurred when 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda tested positive for nandrolone and was banned for a year. In perhaps the least known episode, Mats Wilander and Karel Novacek tested positive for cocaine at the 1995 French Open.

Yes, you read that right: cocaine. Mull that over for a while and keep it in perspective as you read on.

History

Drugs in sports have a rich history, dating back to the emergence of drugs in mainstream culture. Yes, I’m talking the ’60s. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) led the way in pioneering the fight against drugs in all levels of sport. The first drug tests were conducted at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, which also turned up the first drug disqualification — a Swedish entrant in the modern pentathlon, Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, who tested positive for excessive alcohol.

An auspicious start? Perhaps, but it may also be considered to have shaped the attitude towards doping for years to come.

The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games were a watershed for sports at all levels. The commercial and sporting worlds merged and gradually sports began to evolve into an entertainment industry which commanded fees that would have been undreamed of in years prior. As the stakes became higher, and the financial motivation greater, the incentive for doping increased.

Tennis was an exhibition event at the L.A. Games and entered the Olympics as a full medal sport in 1988. As a condition of its entry, tennis agreed to adopt the IOC Anti-Doping Program (pdf). Testing had already been introduced at Wimbledon in 1986, so compliance and administering were not new to the sport, however, in keeping with the times the only substances tested for were recreational drugs.

The drug disqualification of sprinter Ben Johnson was the biggest story of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and shed light on a burgeoning problem: doping was a demon that needed to be exorcised. Subsequently, national governments and sports at all levels hustled to introduce their own programs.

At this point the three main tennis bodies — ITF, ATP and WTA — each had different programs. In 1996 a unified Tennis Anti-Doping Program was adopted by all three organizations, exhibiting co-operation at the global level between the three distinct organizations.

Tennis became a somewhat of a model for other sports, with a strong educational component and independent administrative oversight. The number of individual tests increased from 213 in 1991 to 633 in 1995. By the year 2000 there were over 2,000 tests a year performed on tennis players with the total number of tests increasing each year. Between 1994 and 2000 there were seven detected doping offenses.

The relatively limited number of positive tests could be interpreted as an indication of the low-risk nature of tennis players towards performance enhancing drug abuse.

Or is it?

Doping Scandal

In a new book entitled, “Tennis Off the Record” (Excerpts in a Swedish newspaper), two Swedish tennis journalists and a former tennis star claim that the ATP covered up a major doping scandal. The book also gives other examples of how professional tennis pays lip-service to its own doping policy.

The case started in the Spring of 2003 when the ATP received seven reports of positive doping tests from the company that managed their testing, from tests that had been taken between August 2002 and May 2003.

Normally it would take about a year for the ATP’s Anti-Doping Tribunal to reach a decision on the cases. In this instance it only took five weeks of investigation by the ATP to make a determination.

They came up with a theory about the positive tests which would excuse the players in question: The ATP’s own staff had caused the positive tests by handing out contaminated supplements. The book says that the remaining tablets and drinks handed out by the trainers were then cleared by laboratory analysis and the ATP had dropped the case.

The ATP validated their theory by pointing out the fact that 36 other doping tests had showed anabolic steroid values just below the permitted levels and it would be highly unlikely that so many players would have the same issue.

The book’s authors, however, say that the theory was hogwash: “All leftover tablets and drinks of the type the ATP claimed had been contaminated with illegal substances during production were later analyzed. Not one of them showed signs of being contaminated.” But at that point, the ATP had already closed the case.

Out of the seven positive doping cases, one player was found guilty of doping offenses that were later excused, and the other six cases were buried. Of the seven, only the Czech player Bohdan Ulihrach was named. He was initially banned for two years, fined and docked 100 ranking points for testing positive for nandrolone.

But he was later cleared when the ATP admitted its error.

The ATP’s Role

The Swedish book provides some examples of how the ATP flagrantly disregards its own anti-doping policy. And the shambled tatters of the biggest steroid case ever to come the ATP’s way did little to bolster confidence in its anti-doping program.

Take for example Argentine Guillermo Coria’s case. He was barred for seven months because he tested positive for anabolic steroids. According to the ATP’s anti-doping code, no player who has been declared ineligible can participate in any capacity in events authorized or organized by the Tour. Yet Coria was able to play a show match during the ATP tournament in Buenos Aires that year. Several players complained about Coria’s participation, but the ATP let it go.

Another Argentine, Guillermo Cañas, was tested positive for doping during the ATP tournament in Acapulco in February 2005. He was allowed to play nine more tournaments and climb to number eight in the world rankings before a two year ban was issued in August 2005.

Three other leading Argentinians have been guilty of drugs offenses in recent years, including Juan Ignacio Chela and Guillermo Cañas, who has appealed to the Court for Arbitration in Sport in Switzerland against a two-year ban for taking a diuretic.

How It Works

The Tennis Anti-Doping Program (TADP) maintains a common set of rules and procedures that apply across all levels of tennis. Players are tested for banned substances in accordance with the guidelines of the World Anti-Doping Code (from WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency).

The TADP began in 1993, with each of the three bodies – the ITF, ATP and WTA Tour – managing and administering testing at their own events. They enforced the rules as well as the punishments, dealing with any cases arising from their events.

Beginning this year, the ITF began managing, administration and enforcement of the Anti-Doping Program at ATP events. This means that the ITF is responsible for testing at the ATP Masters Series events, ATP International Series Gold and International Series events, Challenger Events and the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup.

The WTA has held onto the responsibility for the TADP at its own events. The Women’s Tennis Association also follows the WADA’s anti-doping guidelines. Unlike the ATP, however, the WTA has not yet ceded testing to the ITF.

The ITF also tests at events that fall under its umbrella: the Grand Slams, Davis Cup and Fed Cups, ITF Men’s Circuit and Women’s Circuit Events, and at Junior and Wheelchair tennis events.

International Review

The recent spate of positive tests has come as a jolt to tennis, and the sport’s governing bodies seem to be taking the issue seriously.

The ITF conducts drug testing for all levels of tennis. The end of this last year saw Roland Garros runner-up Mariano Puerta and Another Argentine, Roland Garros quarterfinalist Guillermo Canas, already serving doping suspensions which began last summer.

Commenting after Puerta’s ban was made public, Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, intimated that the problem may be quite pervasive and given the attention it deserves. One has to wonder why Puerta wasn’t banned for life.

On the women’s side, rising star and Roland Garros quarterfinalist Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgarian was recently banned for two years for violating the drug policy, and it’s somewhat of a rarity for the women’s side.

Rumors of doping do abound in the women’s side though. Last year Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva and Nathalie Dechy found themselves accusedof doping after Belgian sports minister Claude Eerdekens told the press that one of them had failed a drug test at an exhibition event. Justine Henin-Hardenne was among them, but was cleared. Henin-Hardenne was accused of doping, however, in her 2003 win over compatriot (and current World Number 1) Kim Clijsters due to her excessive muscle and weight gain.

So, What is the Dope?

Tennis has long enjoyed a presumption of innocence when it comes to drugs. The sport has benefited from a posh reputation. Like golf, it emits a distinct whiff of privilege, and while it is true that rich kids use drugs too, tennis conjures images – collared white shirts and meticulous green lawns – that seem a world removed from the sordid business of doping. It is easy to envision finding a bottle of pills in the macho atmosphere of a sweaty major league baseball locker room… but in the men’s changing room at the All-England Club?

Tennis is also seen as a clean sport because relatively few players to this point have been accused of doping, let alone found guilty. To the extent that there has been a problem, it has generally been regarded not as a tennis problem per se but as an Argentine problem.

More importantly, tennis exhibits almost none of the tell-tale signs of rampant steroid use. There have been no dramatic changes in the way tennis players look, or in how they play the game. True, the players are much bigger and stronger nowadays, but that is true of athletes in general. Few if any tennis players have undergone the kind of dramatic physical transformations that first raised suspicions in athletics and US baseball. In fact, bulk is no asset on the tennis court.

And while the players seem to be getting injured with much greater frequency and for longer durations, there is a plausible, two-pronged explanation: the tennis season is too long and modern rackets generate so much power that bones, muscles and joints have trouble keeping up.

Successful cheating requires a high level of knowledge of pharmacology – an understanding of how drug-masking agents work, for instance, and when to take them – and a network of enablers. Tennis players lack both.

As Agassi pointed out, “I don’t know how you’d pull it off… I got tested 20 times last year, Federer 23 times and Andy 20 – we test so extensively that we have absolutely removed the possibility of somebody taking drugs to obtain a strategic advantage.”