Drug taking is rife in professional tennis, a report in a US magazine claimed on the eve of the start of the French Open on Monday.
Tennis Week warned that players were using doping products ”in a systematic manner”.
Tennis officials told the magazine that ”drug use was as prevalent in professional tennis as it was among young rich people in other branches of the entertainment industry”.
Last year 1 234 drug tests were carried out on the ATP and WTA circuits with one player producing a positive sample – Argentina’s Guillermo Coria who was banned for seven months for using steroids – a verdict that he has always contested.
Brian Hainline, official doctor at the US Open, claimed tennis players weren’t ”devils, but they’re not angels either. If they decide to do whatever it takes, they can get away with it”.
He said there were loopholes in the testing process, and warned that the testing process was compromised by lack of funds.
”There are financial limits  it costs $500 to $1 000 per test  and there are limits to how much the players will put with up it.”
The timing of the article presents a stiff challenge to the anti-doping controls in place at the French Open at Roland Garros.
Urine tests, first introduced in 1990, are conducted by two doctors – a man and a woman – picked by the French sports minister.
For the first time the list of banned substances produced by the French tennis federation is the same as that used by the International Olympic Committee, yet the performance enhancer EPO is not among them.
Which players are tested is decided by a draw at the start of the tournament with systematic tests conducted from the quarter-finals onwards. – Sapa-AFP