Maria Sharapova is back and her drug ban is receding into memory in a sport where the anti-doping procedure barely scratches the surface of a problem that is unlikely to be non-existent
In tennis, cleanliness is next to wealthiness. Announcing record levels of sponsorship deals back in 2015, the ATP chairman Chris Kermode explained: “People see [tennis] as a clean sport, it’s a great product with great athletes and I think tennis is in the best place it’s ever been.”
Why do people see tennis as a clean sport? The simple answer is that very few players ever test positive for banned substances. Except in faintly glamorous ways, like when Richard Gasquet ingested cocaine from kissing a lady all night in a Miami nightclub. Richard, you’ve tested positive for being a Mr Loverman.
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