• French Open

Tennis 'a clean sport' insists Nadal

ESPN staff
May 28, 2013
Rafael Nadal believes there are no cases of doping in tennis © Getty Images
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Rafael Nadal once again insisted tennis is a drug-free sport, and has called on the governing bodies to go public for when and how many drug tests are taken.

The Spaniard came from a set down to defeat Daniel Brands in his opening-round encounter on Monday at the French Open, but in his post-match press conference the record seven-time champion faced questions relating to drugs and suggested the authorities should make testing more transparent.

"If you make the controls public and everybody can know how many controls that everybody has, then you are not going to have these questions because you will know how many controls we will have. That's my feeling," Nadal said.

In April, the 26-year-old slammed the decision of a Spanish court to destroy evidence of 211 blood bags at the end of Operation Puerto as Dr Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted over his role in supplying blood transfusions to cyclists.

And Nadal believes it is up to the governing bodies to share controls of drug-testing with the public as they continue to grow sceptical about drug-cheats in various sports.

"So why we cannot make everything clean? Why we cannot make everything public? Then we don't have to come here and ask if we are overtested or, you know, we are not tested enough," Nadal added.

"That's my feeling. Tennis is a very clean sport. We don't have a lot of cases of doping. And we are having a lot of controls."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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