Rising tennis star Yanina Wickmayer says she isn't a drugs cheat and blames Belgian doping authorities for the breach of anti-doping regulations which caused her to be banned for a year.
A Belgian court and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) have since suspended the bans imposed on Wickmayer and compatriot Xavier Malisse in November for breaches of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) whereabouts rule.
The 20-year-old Wickmayer will return to the court as a wild card in next week's ASB Classic in Auckland, a warm-up to January's Australian Open.
At a news conference yesterday, Wick-mayer told New Zealand media she was regularly drug-tested during the period she reportedly failed to inform her national anti-doping agency of her whereabouts.
'Never failed a drug test'
She had never failed a drug test or missed a drug test and the Flemish anti-doping agency Nado Flanders was aware of her whereabouts because she was playing in a televised tournament in Australia, she said.
Wickmayer rose from 71 to 16 on world rankings during 2009. As a top-50 player she came under WADA's whereabouts rule which requires players to notify authorities of their whereabouts 365 days a year for out-of-competition testing.
Wickmayer said the requirements of the whereabouts rule had never been adequately explained to her and letters notifying her of her breach of the rule were sent to her home in Belgium while she was in Australia.
She was banned, as was Malisse, when she failed to notify authorities of her whereabouts on three occasions. Her lawyers have since appealed her ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights.
Regular testing
"Maybe I didn't fill in my whereabouts in Belgium but I got tested every two or three weeks," Wickmayer said yesterday.
"I didn't fill in that I was in Australia but I was there and I got tested. I never tested positive and I never missed a doping test. I think that is the main thing that is important. That is why they made the system, to catch the ones who test positive and I never did."