Talented young Frenchman Richard Gasquet has been spared of a lengthy, year long doping ban, after an independent Anti-Doping Tribunal cleared him to return to action.
Having missed Roland Garros and Wimbledon, a panel of three lawyers accepted Gasquet’s plea of negligence and inadvertent consumption. Gasquet was tested positive in March for traces of benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of banned substance cocaine.
Because a sample the size of a grain of salt was discovered in Gasquet’s system, the panel concluded the case was ‘unusual to the point of being probably unique’. Gasquet explained how he had kissed a woman who had taken the drug in a French nightclub, prior to the day of testing.
The 23 year old Gasquet dropped 9 places to 32nd in the ATP rankings following his two month exclusion. His career highlights include a semi-final appearance at SW19 in 2007, where he was ousted by Roger Federer. He is not the first tennis athlete to be involved with the drug cocaine, following Martina Hingis’s 2 year ban in 2007.
