Martina Hingis retires from Tennis amid Cocaine scandal

[LOC Veteran]

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Martina Hingis said Thursday she has been accused of testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon, and then announced her retirement from professional tennis.

Hingis, a five-time Grand Slam champion and former Wimbledon winner, denied using cocaine.

"I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous that I've decided to confront it head on by talking to the press," she said. "I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely 100 percent innocent."

The 27-year-old Swiss player lost in the third round at Wimbledon to Laura Granville, 6-4, 6-2.

Hingis returned to the sport two years ago after a four-year absence because of injuries.

She won three straight Australian Open titles from 1997-99, and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open championships in 1997.

Hingis, who lost in the third round of the U.S. Open, hasn't played since her second-round loss to Peng Shuai of China, 7-5, 6-1, in Beijing on Sept. 19.

Hingis said she was accused by "an outsource testing company" of taking cocaine during Wimbledon. She said she was "shocked and appalled" when notified that her urine sample came back positive after the loss to Granville.

"They say that cocaine increases self-confidence and creates a type of euphoria," she said in a statement. "I don't know. I only know that if I were to try to hit the ball while in any state of euphoria, it simply wouldn't work.

"I would think that it would be impossible for anyone to maintain the coordination required to play top class tennis while under the influence of drugs. And I know one other thing -- I would personally be terrified of taking drugs."

Hingis said she later underwent a privately arranged hair test which came back negative for cocaine. The official backup "B" sample test on her Wimbledon urine sample, however, tested positive for the drug.

Hingis said she hired an attorney who found "various inconsistencies" with the urine sample taken during Wimbledon.

"He is also convinced that the doping officials mishandled the process and would not be able to prove that the urine that was tested for cocaine actually came from me," she said.

Hingis said it could take years to fight her case and decided it was time to retire.

"I have no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials," she said. "The fact is that it is more and more difficult for me, physically, to keep playing at the top of the game.

"And frankly, accusations such as these don't exactly provide me with motivation to even make another attempt to do so."

WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott said the tour had not received any official information about a positive test and "as a result we are not in a position to comment on the matter."

"However, it is important to remember that in the area of anti-doping, all players are presumed innocent until proven otherwise," Scott said.

Referring to her retirement, he said, "Martina Hingis is a tremendous champion and a fan favorite the world over. In her most recent comeback, she proved again that she can perform at the very highest levels of the game."

From CNNSI.

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[Rappy Veteran]

Yeah I just read this, its pretty crazy!

But the weird thing is she just packed up her career there and then instead of really going out to refuse the claims.

[Guest]

Hasn't she retired once before?

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw her on the court again, she's still young.

[sanctified Veteran]

Yeah I just read this, its pretty crazy!

But the weird thing is she just packed up her career there and then instead of really going out to refuse the claims.

She explains why she took this decission and to an extent I can agree with her.

Its very exhausting just to have a common fight, now imagine something like that for years.

[Max Veteran]

I don't understand - she tests positive for cocaine and says she is completely clean? Of course her lawyer is going to say that the samples 'might be' mixed up - thats what lawyers do when faced with stuff like this.

[Guyro]

and even if she won the court battles to prove she wasnt using cocaine, people because of the press would still think/remember her as the player who used cocaine, whether or not she actually did

[gunnerhkjp]

Can someone test positive for cocaine without using?

[Farstrider]

Can someone test positive for cocaine without using?

False Positives: The Dark Secret of the Drug Testing Regime:

The New Scientist has an excellent story on student drug testing which reveals, among other things, that the stupid tests don't even work:

What's more, such tests can flag kids who are "clean" and miss genuine users. A study led by [director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Children's Hospital Boston, Sharon] Levy and published this month in Pediatrics (DOI: 01.1542/peds.2006-2278) examined recent drug tests of teenagers being treated for substance abuse. Of 710 drug tests performed, 85 gave incorrect results, either because the urine sample was too dilute to interpret properly, or because the test picked up prescription medicines.

?

"Drug tests can be very difficult to understand and interpret," says Levy. "There are lots of circumstances under which a kid could be using drugs and not test positive or have a positive test when they are not using drugs."

The tests were wrong 11.9% of the time. That's unbelievable. If 12 students out of 100 are getting bogus results, these tests aren't even close to being useful. And while follow-up tests can sometimes set things straight, consider this:

The complete article is here........

Here is another link as well!

I can not vouch for the validity of the article, I am presuming that it is reasonably accurate!

Edited November 8, 2007 by Farstrider

[Budious]

Rich white woman + cocaine , I have no reason to doubt the story. Then again, I think Floyd Landis is innocent.

[Farstrider]

Rich white woman + cocaine , I have no reason to doubt the story. Then again, I think Floyd Landis is innocent.

Sorry to say you can not have it both ways! You reasoning has no basis in fact or logic! What criteria have you used to determine what story you believe? What is FL a "poor white man? = No cocaine!!? Substitute illegal performance-enhancing blood doping for cocaine. ;)

[Budious]

FL is indeed a poor white man... the tour represented his first big lump cash win and that got froze when all this BS got started. Pro Cycling doesn't hand out winnings like Pro Tennis...

[wii360]

Who cares if shes used cocaine or not. shes retired now. good luck to her

[:: Lyon ::]

awww..don't want her to retire

[Doli]

Who cares if shes used cocaine or not. shes retired now. good luck to her

Because she wasnt retired when she tested positive at Wimbledon.

[napol]

I don't think she's guilty

She retired because she doesn't want her legacy and her achievements in her great career to be overshadowed by this scandal.

[Boffa Jones Veteran]

Who the **** cares? I do not intend to do cocaine, but really... who cares if someone else does? Would it enhance her performance? In the end this is the kind of non issue that gets blown out of proportion for no good reason. Unless of course Cocaine is some sort of performance enhancer...