Frenchwoman Alize Cornet was placed under a disciplinary investigation on Wednesday after missing three random drug tests, the French tennis federation (FFT) announced.
The FFT said they had been informed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) that 27-year-old Cornet, ranked at 42 in the world, had missed the tests in a 12-month period and will not be considered for Fed Cup duty while the inquiry is ongoing.
However, she insisted that the ITF “didn’t want to hear” her reasons for the missed tests.
“The French Tennis Federation, after being informed by the International Tennis Federation on January 11, takes note of the opening, against Alize Cornet, of a disciplinary procedure for a breach of the rules governing the anti-doping fight, in this case three non-appearances during random checks in the last twelve months,” said a FFT statement.
Cornet could be banned from the sport as World Anti-Doping Agency rules allow for a suspension of up to two years.
However, that could be halved depending on the degree of fault. Cornet will now have to prove that she had a legitimate reason for missing one of the tests.
Cornet was last in action at the Australian Open where she was knocked out in the third round by Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens.
The Frenchwoman needed a medical timeout in that clash, complaining of the effects of 40-degree heat. She went on to lambast tournament officials for treating players like “robots”.
“Among the 20 anti-doping controls that I had in the 2017 season, which were all negative of course, I missed three unannounced controls at home because of valuable reasons that the ITF didn’t want to hear,” Cornet wrote in a Twitter statement on Wednesday.
In its response to Cornet’s comments, the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme said: “[C]ontrary to the implications in Ms Cornet’s statement... the process set out in the International Standard for Testing and Investigations for the management of Whereabouts Failures, which inculed the right for the player to request an independent assessment of whether the requirements for such failures were met, was followed in all three instances.”
Cornet, who reached a career high of 11 in the world in 2009 and has won five singles titles, will not be considered for the French Fed Cup team’s World Group tie against Belgium on February 10 and 11.
(with inputs from AFP)
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