Players' meeting produces no boycott
Posted: Saturday January 16, 1999 09:29 AM
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Korda regained some of the players' respect for attending the meeting AP |
MELBOURNE (Reuters) -- The world's leading male tennis players have dismissed talk of possible protest action over Petr Korda's positive drug test and will await the outcome of court cases, players and officials said on Saturday.
ATP Tour chief executive officer Mark Miles rejected Australian media speculation about a possible player boycott of the Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on Monday.
After the three-hour annual players' meeting, which Korda attended without addressing his fellow players, player representative Todd Martin rejected the boycott talk as a media "concoction."
A grim-faced Korda, the Australian Open champion, left the meeting without speaking to the media.
Martin added that the players respected Korda for attending the meeting and that the majority had no problem with the Czech defending his only Grand Slam title.
Martin and Miles both said the players were content to await the outcome of the ITF's appeal against the lenient sentence on the player and for Korda's challenge to that appeal.
But the player could still face further sanctions.
"I think most of us do want to know the exceptional circumstances and it's just a matter of convincing the general player body that we need to wait until the end of the appeal system and then we'll know everything that's happened," he said.
After that, Korda would be allowed to play on if his innocence was established, he said.
"If not, if he's found guilty at that point then he will both return his prize money and his points from the tournaments he has played since the test was taken last July and he will take his 12-month, or whatever length, suspension," Martin said.
"I've heard some rumors about player-organized actions to make a point here at the Australian Open," Miles told reporters after the three-hour meeting.
"That was not discussed and that isn't going to happen. This tournament will not be affected by any anti-doping case coming into it," he said.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced in December that the spindly Czech had tested positive for the performance enhancing steroid nandrolone at Wimbledon.
Under ITF rules the offence carries a customary penalty of a one-year ban, but Korda was only stripped of the $92,529 prize money and the ranking points he earned at Wimbledon in a sanction felt by some players to have been too lenient.
The ban was not imposed because, despite finding him guilty of a "category one" doping offence, an independent ITF Appeals Committee accepted his plea that he had not knowingly taken the drug and believed there were exceptional circumstances.
Korda has maintained he did nothing wrong but has refused to comment on what those exceptional circumstances might be, saying the matter was in the hands of his lawyers.
The ITF said on January 7 it would appeal against the light penalty to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.
However Korda's lawyers said on Wednesday their client had begun proceedings in the English High Court challenging the ITF's right to appeal against the sentence. It was hoped a hearing would be granted within two months.
Miles and Martin stressed that the meeting discussed the ATP Tour's anti-doping programme in general rather than Korda's case in particular.
"We're all going to try to be patient through the next few months and wait for the appeals process to be over through CAS and trust the system as it's set up," Martin said.
Miles said only one unidentified player had expressed a desire to hear Korda's explanation. Other players emerging from the meeting said former world number one Jim Courier had spoken at length about the case.
"In the course of making a comment ... in effect a player invited Petr to say something, and that didn't happen," Miles said.
"I do believe that there's majority support for sure, and I think that maybe only one or two or maybe a few players are opposed to his participation," said Martin, who arrived late after winning the final warm-up tournament in Sydney.
Some players, including Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman, had spoken out against Korda over the past two weeks while others, including dual U.S. Open champion Pat Rafter, urged caution until the full facts were known.
Miles said he did not know what exceptional circumstances had been cited in Korda's defence but was confident they would emerge in time.
He said the players discussed and appeared to support an International Olympic Committee initiative for mandatory two-year bans for class one doping offences.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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