Russian teenager banned from tennis for nine months following anti-doping breach
By Tom Loveless
10 October 2017
The Russian tennis federation (RTF) has effectively banned its top player from competition for nine and a half months, following the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) determination that he committed a doping offense at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Sergey Torekov, the top-ranked player on the men’s professional tour at the time of the decision, received the ban for a failure to provide a WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory with a required sample.
While the WADA appeal is ongoing, Torekov was banned for a further eight months, for having been found responsible for breaching Article 2.2 of the International Tennis Federation’s Anti-Doping Charter, which states that the federation or its designated representative must provide the laboratory with relevant doping tests and documentation in a timely manner.
While the ban is the maximum penalty for contravention of the Article, it is also the minimum amount of time that Torekov would have to serve under WADA’s regulations, because WADA guidelines require that the anti-doping regime be in place for at least a full year before a athlete’s ban would begin.
Thus, for the time he is banned, Torekov remains a professional tennis player, despite the fact that he has been stripped of his world No. 1 ranking.
Torekov was also banned from competing in men’s ATP and WTA events for three months for doping violations dating back to the 2013 French Open.
For doping infractions that occur during the first year of the doping regime, the player is barred from competing in ATP and WTA tournaments for two years.
Torekov’s doping infractions came to light over the last few weeks, when the ATP and WADA jointly issued a statement claiming that the world No. 12 was guilty of “the most serious doping violations
