Just when you thought tennis couldn't possibly come up with yet another twist in the cops and robbers game played between real or imagined drug-using players and doping control officers, we get news that two Belgians, Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse, had been slapped with one-year bans from tennis for …
Well, for not being available to take drug tests, as per the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (AAMS) protocols that require players to tell officials where they will be at a chosen hour each day for a three-month period.
That highlights one of the differences between a high-profile pro tennis player and you and me; we know danged well that we'll be sitting in front of this computer screen in this cubicle for the next three … heck, the next 30 years!
Seriously, though, is it reasonable to demand that kind of availability from players accustomed to making last-minute plane reservations on any given day, who spend as much time on airplanes shuttling between continents as they do in their "office" (the tennis court), and to whom the schedule on so many days revolves around the order of play? Heck, tennis players are rarely sure when they'll eat next, never mind where they'll be at 3 p.m. next Wednesday.
Miss a flight, get suspended. I exaggerate, but not by much.
Wickmayer, 20, is ranked No. 18 in the world, and is playing the best tennis of her young life (she was a surprise semifinalist at the U.S. Open a few months ago). Now she's looking down the barrel of a 12-month suspension.
Malisse, now 29 and in ranking free fall, was once hailed as a potential Grand Slam champ, but didn't have the determination or consistency to make good on the prophecy. This would seem to be a career-ending punishment inflicted on Malisse for having missed one doping test.
Wickmayer's infraction was, literally, three times as serious. She went AWOL three times, and that's a little disturbing. You can't expect the teacher to believe that your dog ate your homework three nights in a row. And there's this: These two players aren't the only ones who have to jump through the doping hoops. If Roger Federer, Serena Williams & Co. all have abided by these demands, why should Wickmayer and Malisse get an exemption?
The two players were slapped with the seemingly draconian penalty just weeks after it seemed that they would get off with a mere reprimand. What we're looking at here is a career-threatening suspension for doping in which doping has played no acknowledged part.
This has the makings of becoming an inexplicable mess, and both players have announced their intent to appeal. Maybe the doping control folks saw the appeals coming, so they made the penalty extra harsh to begin with, figuring it may be negotiated down. And the timing, in the wake of the Andre Agassi crystal meth controversy, sure seems convenient if you're inclined to believe the lords of tennis can exercise their most Machiavellian muscle in the name of damage control.
Still, Malisse has struggled to get back in the mix, and his time is running out. And if Wickmayer's hide-and-seek game coincided with her meteoric rise in the rankings, the sport would be remiss in backing away from the suspensions.
My immediate reaction -- that this is a case of overkill -- has been changing even as I've typed these words. I'm going to suspend judgment until the appeals are formally submitted, but it would be terribly unfair to all those players over whom Wickmayer has leapfrogged if her apparently conscious effort to avoid those tests represented something more than youthful irresponsibility.
Peter Bodo
