Puerta smashed by severity of tennis ban

MARIANO Puerta has described as “extraordinary” his eight-year ban for failing a doping test following this year’s French Open final.

The 27-year-old Argentine has three weeks to appeal against the decision.

“I find it extraordinary that it could ever be thought satisfactory a person’s livelihood can be terminated in circumstances such as these,” he said.

“I will, of course, be considering an appeal but no decision will be taken until the new year.”

The ruling was announced by the International Tennis Federation on Wednesday.

Puerta said: “I did not deliberately or knowingly ingest any prohibited substance.”

Patrick Russell, solicitor to Puerta, said: “There are two stories here. One is the awful personal plight for Mariano facing the effective end to his talented career. The second concerns a wider matter of public interest for sport: whether it is sensible for commercial interests to invest in the careers of sports people if they can be brought to nothing as a result of an incident such as this, involving a trivial, minute and purely accidental ingestion of medicine available over the counter.”