By Richard Pagliaro | Monday, April 25, 2016
"I intend not only to defend my integrity and my image as an athlete, but also the values I have defended all my career," Nadal said after filing a lawsuit against former French official who charged him with doping.
Photo credit: Rio Open
Rafael Nadal said he was sick and tired of being a target of unfounded doping charges.
Today, Nadal struck a legal blow against an accuser.
Watch: Rafael Nadal Clay Milestones
Nadal announced he has sued Roselyne Bachelot, the French minister of health and sports between 2007 and 2010, who told a French television program Nadal "without any doubt tested positive" for a banned substance and had served a silent ban in 2012 and 2013.
"Through this case, I intend not only to defend my integrity and my image as an athlete, but also the values I have defended all my career," Nadal said in the statement announcing his lawsuit. "I also wish to avoid any public figure from making insulting or false allegations against an athlete using the media, without any evidence or foundation, and to go unpunished."
In an interview with the French TV program Le Grand 8, Bachelot alleged Nadal's break from tennis in 2012 was "without any doubt because he tested positive (for a banned substance)" rather than due to injury.
"We know that Nadal's famous seven-month injury was without a doubt due to a positive [drug test]," Bachelot told Le Grand 8. "When you see a tennis player who stops playing for long months, it is because he has tested positive and because they are covering it up. It is not something that always happens, but yes it happens more than you think."
Asked about the allegations at Indian Wells last month, Nadal reiterated he has never taken performance enhancing drugs and vowed to sue Bachelot and "everyone" who makes unfounded doping allegations against him.
"There is a couple of times I heard comments like this, and this gonna be the last one, because I gonna sue her," Nadal told the media in Indian Wells. "I am tired about these things. I let it go a few times in the past. Not more, you know.
"To hear those comments from a person that should be serious, because she was minister of a big country and a great country like France. So I gonna sue her, and I gonna sue everyone who gonna comment something similar in the future, because I am tired of that."
See Nadal vow to sue over everyone who charges him with doping at 2:20 of the video:
Toni Nadal, Rafael's uncle and coach, branded Bachelot "a fool" after hearing her comments.
"I'm surprised anyway when people in the street say it, but for a former official to say it seems incredible to me," Toni Nadal told Spain's RAC1 last month. "I don't know what motives this lady has in saying this, but it's obvious that she does not know tennis or the sport world."
Toni Nadal said his nephew has passed multiple drug tests every year and is committed to competing in a clean sport.
"Rafa's lawyer is working to take all possible measures and with maximum force. In this world, instead of proving the guilt of a person, you have to prove your innocence," Toni Nadal said. "This woman is a fool. Rafa goes through many [doping] controls every year even though he has done nothing and will do nothing wrong. He believes in a clean sport.
"Having made the case of Sharapova public, why don't they do the same with him if they are so sure? It's strange."