The ITF has closed a case against Alizé Cornet, although the French woman missed three doping tests within a year.
Tennis professionals must always indicate a location where they will be outside the competition to be available for unannounced doping tests. Cornet had missed this three times in a year.
The 28-year-old now asserted that she had been in her apartment, but her intercom was broken. She did not receive a phone call.
An independent ITF tribunal has now concluded that the doping controller has not taken “appropriate steps” to find Cornet. These could have been, for example, to address other people who came from the apartment complex or to ring at another apartment. The doping controller continued to testify that a call to Cornet’s cell phone only landed on the voicemail.
Cornet referred to her more than 100 negative doping tests as part of her career. The ITF also concluded that there was no suspicion that it had taken banned substances.
Cornet explained the first unsuccessful attempt with the fact that she set off for the Fed Cup earlier than expected. She thought she had updated her location info. On the second test, she left her parents 15 minutes earlier than planned because she was afraid of too much traffic.
Here you can read the complete decision.