Rusedski free to play on

Greg Rusedski is free to continue playing tennis as he awaits the outcome of the hearing into his positive drugs test.

But he would be unable to play if the verdict went against him and he decided to appeal, and that could rule him out of Britain’s Davis Cup tie in Luxembourg in early April.

Rusedski made no comment last night as he left the offices of the tribunal’s presiding judge, Yves Fortier QC, by a side entrance to avoid waiting reporters in his home city of Montreal.

The British number two, accompanied by his wife Lucy and lawyers Mark Gay and David Pannick, got into a waiting car with blacked out windows and headed straight for the airport following the eight-hour hearing.

The 30-year-old was more forthcoming when he arrived at Heathrow airport early this morning and revealed he expects the verdict to be announced before the end of next week.

“I am confident and we’ll just have to wait and see,” said Rusedski, who also felt the tribunal had been conducted ‘fairly’.

“We are cautiously optimistic and are hoping for the best. I have no idea when I am going to hear the verdict.

“It’s anywhere between three to nine days so all we can do is sit tight at the moment.”

Rusedski is currently entered for next week’s tournament in Rotterdam – where British number one Tim Henman will be in action – but it remains to be seen whether he will be in the right frame of mind to compete.

If found guilty of taking the banned steroid nandrolone after testing positive at a tournament in Indianapolis last year, Rusedski faces a maximum two-year ban from tennis, which would effectively spell the end of his career.

After the verdict is announced, he would have 21 days to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, after which he could, like former Australian Open champion Petr Korda in 1998, go all the way to the High Court.

However, while the appeal process is ongoing, he would be ineligible to play both in regular ATP tournaments and the ITF-controlled Davis Cup.

Britain face an away tie in Luxembourg starting on April 9, and Davis Cup captain Jeremy Bates will be desperate to have Rusedski available to partner Henman.

Britain slipped into the Euro-Africa Zone last year following defeats to Australia – minus the injured Rusedski and Henman – and Morocco, the latter coming just as Rusedski was told his B sample had tested positive for nandrolone.

Rusedski lost in five sets to Younes El Aynaoui on Friday and after teaming up with Henman to win Saturday’s doubles had to be put on an intravenous drip. He then lost to Hicham Arazi in a deciding fifth rubber played over two days because of fading light.

Should Rusedski be unavailable to face Luxembourg, who beat Finland 4-1 at the weekend to book their place in the group quarter-finals, Britain would have to rely upon the likes of British number three Arvind Parmar – world ranking currently 168 – or young left-hander Alex Bogdanovic – ranked 280.

Victory for Luxembourg, who rely largely on the 167th ranked Gilles Muller – a 20-year-old 6ft 5in left-hander – would mean Britain would remain out of the elite 16-nation World Group for at least another two years.

That is no doubt the least of Rusedski’s worries at the moment however as he awaits the verdict from Monday’s hearing.

He has strongly protested his innocence ever since making the findings known himself last month after coming under pressure from the media when rumours began to circulate.

The former US Open finalist believes his case is part of “one of the biggest scandals in world sport” and feels he is being “singled out” by the ATP, the governing body of the men’s game.

That claim relates to the seven other positive tests for nandrolone between August 2002 and May 2003, and 36 others which showed elevated levels of the steroid below the legal limit of two nanograms per millilitre.

Of the seven players to test positive, only Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic was found guilty and initially banned for two years, only to win an appeal when it emerged that ATP trainers had been giving players electrolyte supplements.

These were thought to be the cause of what the ATP call “an unprecedented number” of samples registering amounts of nandrolone.

The other six players, who have not been named under the ATP’s confidentiality clause, were then also cleared and the association’s trainers were told to stop distributing the suspect electrolytes in May 2003.

It was clearly hoped that would be the end of the matter, but when Rusedski tested positive two months later in Indianapolis – recording a level of almost five nanograms per millilitre – his sample contained the same “unique analytical fingerprint” present in the earlier tests.

It is also understood that three other samples showing elevated levels of nandrolone have also had the same analytical fingerprint since the suspect electrolytes were supposedly no longer being handed out.

That brings the total of positive or elevated tests to 47 and the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) admitted it was “concerned and disturbed” about elements of the ATP’s initial investigation and the speed with which the theory about the electrolytes was accepted.

It is also understood that Rusedski claimed at the tribunal that players were not personally informed of the decision to stop distributing the electrolytes, and were left to find out from notice boards and the players’ newsletter.