Roger Federer has long been a proponent of harsh drug testing in professional tennis, and he says he would like to see even more testing.
“I definitely think that tennis is doing a lot better than we have in the past,” Federer said from Miami this week. “You could always do more testing. You could ask someone here in 50 years’ time and he’ll say we could still do more. You could be tested four times per day.”
Federer also wants blood samples to be kept for 10 years for retroactive punishments.
Federer’s comments come in the wake of Maria Sharapova’s positive test for meldonium at the Australian Open. Federer says he has no reason to believe his fellow players are cheating, but he wants lots of testing to ensure the sport is clean.
One of Fed’s complaints is that when he is in Switzerland, he says he is tested regularly. However, when he is at his home in Dubai, he says he is rarely tested. He says he was only tested once there in 10 years.
If players are looking to exploit loopholes in drug testing, maybe they should take a close look at Federer’s comments and move to Dubai.
