Do top tennis players take steroids? Only tougher testing will quash the endless rumours

In an article in Le Monde last November, former top French tennis star Yannick Noah credited Spain’s recent sporting success on athletes using “a magic potion”. In February this year, the French satirical puppet show, Les Guignols aired a skit featuring top Spanish sportsmen and hypodermic syringes (the Spanish authorities went bonkers, naturally, and Nadal described French humour as tiresome). 

I’ve derived so much pleasure from watching tennis that I’ve always deliberately chosen to ignore rumours about players taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). But when I learned that the reigning Olympic champion, Rafael Nadal, had withdrawn from this year’s event with an unspecified injury, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help wondering whether it had anything to do with all the publicity concerning the stringent drug-testing regime in place for the Games.

Let’s get this straight: I prefer to believe that we just happen to be living through a Golden Age in tennis, packed with more great players in their prime than any other comparable era (I say comparable, because, if tennis had been “open” around 1961 you’d have had Laver, Rosewall, Hoad and Pancho Gonzalez all playing majors at the same time). And as Roger Federer is a hero of mine, and most online accusations against the likes of Nadal, Djokovic and Murray are being slung by equally besotted Federasts, it seems too easy to canonize the Swiss maestro by besmirching the reputation of his main rivals: after all, Federer just won his 17^th slam at Wimbledon, thereby, one would have thought, putting the GOAT argument to rest once and for all.

So, without for a moment implying in any way that Nadal takes PEDs (because what the hell do I know?; because he seems like a very decent and humble young man; and because his coach, Uncle Toni, sportingly applauds good shots by Rafa’s opponents), I thought I’d look at the major arguments employed by his accusers and defenders, to see where the debate’s at (the first clip, from 2008, sums up the main source of suspicion in a nutshell):

Anti-Nadal arguments:

He claims not to work out in the gym – in which case it’s hard to understand how he manages to change his upper body mass so markedly within a relatively short space of time – i.e. he has been known to end a season looking normal only to return a few weeks later bulging impressively. 

Some earlier shots of his arms show boulder-sized biceps complete with a startlingly pronounced artery – all very body-buildery. 

He has a tendency to withdraw from big events citing injuries that simply weren’t apparent at the previous tournament. 

He quite often loses badly in smaller tournaments only to turn up for a slam a few weeks later firing on all cylinders, which is odd for a player who is self-admittedly so reliant on confidence. 

His service speed yo-yos markedly from year to year – and sometime from one part of the season to the next. That isn’t normal. 

He has performed feats of stamina which – frankly – defy belief. At various points in his career he has undoubtedly been the fittest, strongest athlete on the planet. 

Many people believed Nadal’s career to be over in 2009 (I was one of them) after he withdrew from Wimbledon and failed to win a set at the end-of-season ATP tour finals five months later. His return to form in 2010, winning three slams in a row, was probably the greatest sporting comeback I’ve ever witnessed. Such a stunning turn-around is bound to arouse suspicion. 

He cheats anyway by almost invariably exceeding the time allowed between points, which suggests he might not be against cheating on a larger scale.

Pro-Nadal arguments:

He’s always been ripped – even as a kid. And he starts each season with bulging muscles because he does do a lot of gym work, then loses body mass as the season progresses because he only uses the gym off-season. 

It’s unlikely he was pumped full of PEDs at 18 when he first won Roland Garros. 

His strength and stamina (both impressive right from the start) increased at exactly the time you’d expect them to – in his early twenties. 

His career-threatening knees are a huge problem – but he’s using a new medical treatment which just happens to work spectacularly well. 

Nadal’s natural strength and stamina mean he’s been able to take advantage of new racket technology and slower grass and hard courts to get the better of more naturally talented opponents. Rackets have a much bigger “sweet spot” than they did in the ‘90s, the ball doesn’t fizz low off fast-court surfaces as it once did, meaning players get back balls they wouldn’t have in the past, so matches frequently turn into lengthy attritional battles – and this suits Nadal’s style and strength to a “T”. 

Accusers exaggerate the size of Nadal’s muscles: look at him next to Federer and there’s actually very little difference between them. 

If his success is based on PEDs, did he misplace them last year when his serve weakened and he lost seven times in a row to Djokovic? 

He doesn’t strike me as a “damaged” human being, and I reckon there has to be something wrong with you to cheat your way to the top (stealing a few extra seconds to recover isn’t in the same league as using chemicals to illegally alter your body).

Nadal fans, understandably, get very angry at the accusation that he’s “juicing”, and, again understandably, launch counter-attacks on Federer. But I find it harder to believe that the GOATman uses PEDs:

Pro-Federer arguments:

He has pretty much always looked the same – his weight, the size of his arms and his upper body mass have barely changed over time: the athlete who won his seventh Wimbledon title three weeks ago looks like the same one who beat Sampras on Centre Court as a 19-year old (apart from the daft hair-do). 

Federer has never been truly ripped – when he changes his shirt on court, there are no gasps of admiration - and his biceps don't bulge. 

He has served at the same speed for years. True, some years he serves better than others, but that’s a matter of accuracy rather than power. 

The reason he so rarely gets injured is that he moves with a balletic grace never before seen in the men’s game, meaning he puts less strain on his body than any other top player. His style of all-out attack means he plays shorter points than any of the other top four players - even when he's losing. 

His stamina levels have been the same for the past nine years, apart, perhaps, from 2008, when he was suffering from mononucleosis. If he takes PEDs, then his intake must have been remarkably consistent for a decade.

He ends the season with same body shape he started it with.

He publicly supports the current drug-testing regime, whereas players like Nadal and Murray often complain that it’s too stringent - which it definitely it isn’t. (But neither of them has done what Serena Williams did last year when an official tester turned up unannounced at her home: she locked herself in a “panic room” and got an employee to phone 911, claiming she thought the official was an intruder.)    

The web is also awash with rumours about Djokovic and, to a lesser extent, Andy Murray. Certainly, the Serb had a bizarrely successful 2011, whereas the player who turned up at this year’s Wimbledon was definitely the old Djokovic – i.e. close, but no trophy. True, his stamina and strength appeared to increase markedly last year and he no longer quits in the middle of matches: it’s hard to believe that’s purely down to a gluten-free diet, and it’s true that this year’s five-set Australian Open final against Nadal had spectators wondering which of the two players would die from their exertions first. But Djokovic won a Grand Slam four years ago and has been there or thereabouts ever since: just as with Federer in 2004, everything just finally fell into place at the start of 2011. (I tend to believe that winning the Davis Cup at the end of 2010 made the difference.)

As for Murray, he has so much natural talent, I have a feeling that he’d have made the breakthrough by now if he’d been taking PEDs – and I imagine his mum would have ripped his head off if she’d discovered he’d been indulging. As for his recent description of a player who was rumoured to have given the names of dopers to the authorities as a “snitch” – well, that was the surly fifteen-year old part of his psyche talking.

Ultimately what convinces me – just – that none of the top four takes drugs is that I imagine the temptation to out an opponent who was beating you by unfair means would simply prove too strong. For instance, while Murray and Djokovic may not be Federer’s best mates, he has always shown the highest respect for Nadal, and the two men evidently like each other (for proof, watch this). Of course the explanation could be that they’re all at it and that’s the reason they keep schtum: but I don’t believe that for a moment.

For now, I’m happy to accept that Rafael Nadal is simply blessed with extraordinary recuperative powers, that Novak Djokovic has found perfectly legal methods of overcoming his various respiratory and stamina problems, that Federer has managed to regain the top spot because of his silky playing style (and his sublime genius, of course) and that Murray has bulked up through nothing more sinister than punishing gym sessions. Besides, if it were to turn out that they'd all been at it, I’d never watch another minute of sport.

Of course, the best way of laying this whole question to rest would be for the Big Four to get together and demand a truly stringent – i.e. effective - testing regime. Tennis is rich enough to afford it – and the rewards for top players are sufficiently great to justify asking them to go that extra mile. (Banning panic rooms might help.)

Meanwhile, if you’re a conspiracy theorist with an interest in tennis, you might want to visit the Tennis Has A Steroid Problem website.