The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) can today confirm that American tennis player Jenson Brooksby has elected to take a voluntary provisional suspension under the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme (TADP).
With a career-high ATP singles ranking of 33, Brooksby, aged 22, has been a member of the International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) since 1 January 2022. The IRTP requires the sport’s highest-ranked players to provide, on a quarterly basis, a record of their competition schedule, location, and a daily one-hour time slot in which they are available for testing when out of competition. This is known as Whereabouts.
Three Whereabouts Failures – which can include missed tests or filing failures – within a rolling 12-month period can result in an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under article 2.4 of the TADP, which carries a maximum sanction of a two-year suspension. In Brooksby’s case, three missed tests have been registered within a 12-month period from April 2022.
Players with three Whereabouts Failures are offered the option of voluntarily entering into provisional suspension, with any time served credited against the player’s period of ineligibility. The player selected this option, which became effective on 5 July 2023.
Though Brooksby elected to take a provisional suspension, doing so is not an admission of the charges by the player, who has informed the ITIA that they will be contesting one or more of the Whereabouts Failures registered against them. As such, the case will be heard by an Independent Tribunal at a future, as yet unconfirmed, date.
As the case has now been referred to an Independent Tribunal, the ITIA will respect the confidentiality rules in place and provide no further comment at this time.
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Published 06 July 2023 08:00
