MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS, Andrey Kartashov/. Russian tennis players will be undergoing tests for banned performance enhancing drugs outside their country, the press service of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said in a statement for TASS.
The Executive Committee (ExCo) of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) approved on Monday the recommendations of its Compliance Review Committee (CRC) to cancel the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) as well as to strip Russia of the right to participate in major international sports tournaments, including the Olympics and World Championships, for the period of four years.
"Tennis has a zero tolerance anti-doping policy," the ITF statement reads. "All players competing at Grand Slams and ITF, WTA and ATP sanctioned events are subject to the WADA-compliant Tennis Anti-Doping Program (TADP); a comprehensive program which includes athlete biological passports, in-competition and out-of-competition testing and the year-round whereabouts program."
"Russian players will have been tested under the TADP, outside of Russia," the statement added.
The WADA ExCo also ruled on Monday that Russia must not host, or bid for or be granted in the four-year period any major international sports tournament. Russian state officials, as well as the officials of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), were banned from attending all major international sports tournaments for the period of four years.
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency has the right to appeal WADA’s ruling within a period of 21 days. In case RUSADA decides against submitting an appeal, it can be also filed by heads of the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committees as well as by heads of the international sports federations.
On November 25, the WADA Compliance Review Committee (CRC) reiterated its previous recommendation for the world anti-doping body’s Executive Committee to strip RUSADA of its compliance status and came up with a recommendation of additional sanctions against Russian sports.
The world’s governing anti-doping body announced on September 23 that it had initiated a probe into the compliance status of RUSADA with the Code of the organization based on the inconsistencies discovered in the data from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.