Federer demands tougher checks to weed out drug cheats
London (AFP) - Roger Federer has
warned tennis chiefs they must bring in
tougher measures to weed out drug
cheats in a bid to avoid a repeat of the
Russian athletics doping scandal.
Russia has been accused of "state-sponsored"
doping by an independent commission set up
by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in a
report which has stunned the sporting world.
The shocking revelations could eventually lead
to Russian athletes being excluded from the
2016 Rio Olympics.
Swiss great Federer, speaking in London
ahead of his appearance in the season-ending
ATP Tour Finals, is a firm believer in testing
players as a deterrent, but the 17-time Grand
Slam winner is adamant his sport can do
more to stamp out drug issues.
"I think it's very important. The player needs
to feel that there are going to be tests often
to shy them away from the stupid thoughts
they might be having," Federer told reporters
at London's O2 Arena on Friday.
Tennis' anti-doping programme falls under the
jurisdiction of the International Tennis
Federation and the exact amount spent on it
is not made public.
And Federer believes the sport's bosses have
the resources to ensure players are tested
after every match once they reach the latter
stages of tournaments.
"I think they try their best but I think we could
always do more. We have a very clear thing of
what we should be doing -- more testing," he
said.
"In my opinion where the points become
greater, the money becomes greater and we
need to be tested. It is very simple. That's
how you scare off people.
"I don't understand that sometimes you have
a run and you win a couple of events, and the
next thing you know you haven't been tested.
It just can't be that way.
"I'm always surprised when I win a
tournament, I walk off the court and it's like,
'Where's the doping guy?' I don't get that. I
hope in the future it's going to be better."
- Hardline stance -
While world number three Federer takes a
hardline stance, Novak Djokovic, the reigning
Tour Finals champion and world number one,
has a different view.
Djokovic launched a stinging attack on the
anti-doping programme at the Tour Finals in
2013 after his fellow Serb Viktor Troicki was
given a 12-month ban for missing a doping
test.
On Friday, Djokovic backed the doping
programme but criticised the 'whereabouts'
policy for being too strict.
Athletes have to inform the testers of where
they will be for a period each day to enable
random out-of-competition testing.
"The whereabouts demands are a little bit too
much and a bit unnecessary to write where
you are every single day of the year," Djokovic
said.
"If you don't appear at the place where it is
written down then you get a warning, then two
warnings and then suspension. I think that is
a bit too much.
"The tennis season is very long. They know
where we are and they can find us.
"When you're in the off-season you are going
back and forth and changing cities and
locations and it can be hard to track down
and fill in the whereabouts sheet."
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