By WTA Tour
January 18 2005

WTA Tour director Larry Scott released a statement in where the Players Union show their anger towards allegations by a Belgian Regional Sports Minister that Svetlana Kuznetsova is involved with using doping at the exhibition tournament in Charleroi last December. WTA Tour Statement from Larry Scott, CEO of WTA TourIn all my years in sports, I have never seen a more disgraceful andirresponsible act by a sports official. This is an egregious breach of ethicalstandards of confidentiality and due process which govern anti-dopingprograms, and has unnecessarily tainted our sport and three wonderful athletes. The Belgian authorities have not complied with credible antidopingprocedures, which require the presumption of innocence and the strictest confidentiality.

The regional Belgian sports minister who has made public comments on the matter has said himself that the named player must be presumed innocent and that the alleged substance could have been a cold medicine taken during an out-of-competition exhibition event in the middle of the off-season. It is important to note that under the WADA Code, the alleged substance is not even prohibited unless it is found in competition.

To date, neither the WTA Tour, the named Players, the ITF, Tennis Australianor the Russian Tennis Federation has been contacted by the Belgianauthorities, and the WTA Tour’s own inquiries to the Belgian authoritieshave gone unanswered.

The WTA Tour, through the extremely rigorous Tennis Anti-DopingProgram modeled on the WADA Code, is committed to ensuring theintegrity of women’s professional tennis. For this reason, we are bothoutraged by the irresponsible nature of the accusations and committed toensuring that due process and proper procedures are followed.

Melbourne, Australia

Tuesday, January 18, 2005