The Kendrick Doping Case:
Who Is Really At Fault?

Matt Cronin

What are the facts behind the suspension of American journeyman Robert Kendrick?

By the time Tennisplayer subscribers read this, American journeyman player Robert Kendrick may have rallied just about every single U.S. male player to his side in his attempt to get his 12-month ban for doping reduced to three months. What are the facts regarding the most recent bizarre twist in saga of allegedly performance enhancing substances, the players, and the doping authorities?

The 31-year-old American tested positive for the banned substance known as methylhexanamine (MHA) at the French Open. Kendrick claims he took a capsule called Zija XM3 to assist with jetlag, without knowing that it contained a banned substance.

He had been flying back and forth to Florida because his fiancée was pregnant and knew he would be unable to get back to Paris early enough to beat jet lag naturally (he arrived on Friday and was scheduled to play on Sunday). A friend of his, he claimed, recommended the pill, saying it contained no banned substances.

He took it when he arrived and after he lost on Sunday, he went to his anti-doping test and failed it. Before he was tested he had to fill out the standard anti-doping form, which noted that he must list "any prescription/non-prescription medication or supplements, including vitamins or minerals, taken over the past seven days."

Did Kendrick really believe he was taking a harmless jet lag pill?

But Kendrick did not list Zija XM3, a pill that is sold as a weight loss supplement. Don't most people believe that most weight loss pills contain some type of stimulant, even if they are, like Zija, marketed as a health product.

I guess Kendrick might have forgotten to list it on the form, but that seems a little improbable given his age and how many times he's filled out those forms or heard the ATP, the ITF and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) constantly lecture players on how critical it is to follow procedure.

Equally or more far fetched, he claimed that he researched the ingredient MHA on the internet and some how went to the wrong web site when he was looking up the WADA list of banned substances. The site he mistakenly checked out said MHA was A-OK.

Who knows, maybe it did. But given that he could have made a phone call to anti-doping authorities and asked, why would he take such a risk? In fact, when I was researching information on Zija XM3, I came across a large, professional web site on dieting which recommended that people not take it precisely because its label and its web site did not contain a list of all it ingredients.

MHA is a stimulant used by bodybuilders in products like Jack3d.

So you are telling me that Kendrick was willing to take a diet pill to fight jet lag but was unaware of the ingredients? That's not very smart. My guess is the realty is that Kendrick knew he had taken a risk and was hoping that no one would detect it, and he got burned.

So what about that ingredient MHA? Turns out it is all the rage with body builders. Why? Because it is in fact a stimulant. One of the most popular supplements used by bodybuilders is called Jack3d, which contains MHA. If you peruse body building forums, you will find that it is not just some protein concoction.

Here's one review:

"I don't think I can praise Jack3d enough. This is hands down the best pre-workout stimulant I have used. It gives you an abundance of clean clear focused energy that you can use to get the task at hand done. It has no shake or crash as do most other stimulants. I personally have used this in my two following meets in which I set 4 national records and eclipsed the 700lb dead-lift barrier twice."

Is Kendrick's punishment unfair compared to Wayne Odesnik?

Does that sound like a jet lag pill to you? What we can surmise here is that clearly, body builders and WADA, which banned MHA, see it as a performance enhancing drug.

Kendrick badly wants to play the 2011 US Open, because he claims it was going to be his last stint in New York anyway. He does not believe that the sentence fits the so-called crime, and neither do many of his fellow players, who have gone on record in support of him. Meanwhile his lawyers have appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration of Sport and are hoping to get a hearing in New York just prior to the Open.

Kendrick's buddies and fellow players like Amer Delic, James Blake, Ryan Sweeting and John Isner made statements in his favor because they say they cannot possibly believe he was trying to cheat. They say he is just too good of a guy. And all of them unequivocally think that he got a raw a deal because he received the same length of sentence that fellow American player Wayne Odesnik did, and Odesnik was suspended for transporting vials of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) into Australia in 2010. He later had his sentence reduced to year when he cooperated with anti-doping authorities and many players think he is a narc.

Ryan Sweeting: one of the American players defending Kendrick.

"Robert will be first one to tell you that he made a mistake, but everyone will tell you that he didn't do it with an intent to cheat and everyone will also tell you the punishment that he got is way too harsh," Delic said. "Especially if it's compared to what Odesnik has served."

Blake said much the same: "He wasn't doing anything performance enhancing to put him out for a year. For all intents and purposes, to end his career, I think is pretty harsh. Especially when we got a guy [Odesnik] who's playing that I think has done a lot worse."

Sweeting went further: "The punishment he received compared to punishments other players received is absolutely absurd. Richard Gasquet tested positive for cocaine, said that he kissed a girl, and I don't think he received any punishment [Gasquet actually was suspended but CAS later reversed the decision]. I don't understand the logic behind it and all the players are wondering what the hell is going on."

As a reporter what amazes me is that when it's their friend being accused, the players can never concede even the small possibility that he may have taken a short cut. Moreover, in all the years I have covered tennis, I have never heard of one player who was busted for doping actually admit a substance got into his system because was trying to enhance his performance. Everyone has an excuse; everyone was wronged.

Australian rugby player Kurt Foggo also ran into trouble taking MHA.

There's an opinion frequently floated that tennis authorities are covering up for the star players and are only going after the smaller fruit of on the tree. Here's what one big name player once told me when I related that to him: "Maybe it's the lower ranked players getting caught because they are the guys who actually need to take PEDs."

No one, accept for Kendrick and his small circle of friends and family, will ever really know whether he has an intent to cheat. And in a very large sense, it doesn't matter because the independent tribunal appointed by the ITF actually wrote in its summary that it did not believe that Kendrick took the substance as performance enhancer.

The suspension was based on the rule that it is a player's duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his body, and that Kendrick took "an inappropriately relaxed approach to his doping responsibilities."

Kendrick may end up with a place in tennis history he never imagined.

That does not sound like a argument that is going to stand up in front of CAS when it comes to the length of the sentence. Kendrick's lawyers are going to bring up the Odesnik matter and as well as the case of Aussie rugby player Kurt Foggo, whose suspension for an MHA offense (he took Jack3d) was reduced from two years to six months because of evidence he was led astray while looking for information on the internet.

But does mean that Kendrick will see a suspension reduction that will allow him to play the US Open? Maybe or maybe not.

What this entire scenario does mean is that the tennis world is far away from establishing a doping policy that it accepted and consistent and properly enforced.

On court, Kendrick, whose career high ranking is no. 69, would have been no more than footnote in the sport's history. Now his name could live on, just not the way he may have imagined when his career began.

What are the facts behind the suspension of American journeyman Robert Kendrick?

By the time Tennisplayer subscribers read this, American journeyman player Robert Kendrick may have rallied just about every single U.S. male player to his side in his attempt to get his 12-month ban for doping reduced to three months. What are the facts regarding the most recent bizarre twist in saga of allegedly performance enhancing substances, the players, and the doping authorities?

The 31-year-old American tested positive for the banned substance known as methylhexanamine (MHA) at the French Open. Kendrick claims he took a capsule called Zija XM3 to assist with jetlag, without knowing that it contained a banned substance.

He had been flying back and forth to Florida because his fiancée was pregnant and knew he would be unable to get back to Paris early enough to beat jet lag naturally (he arrived on Friday and was scheduled to play on Sunday). A friend of his, he claimed, recommended the pill, saying it contained no banned substances.

He took it when he arrived and after he lost on Sunday, he went to his anti-doping test and failed it. Before he was tested he had to fill out the standard anti-doping form, which noted that he must list "any prescription/non-prescription medication or supplements, including vitamins or minerals, taken over the past seven days."

Did Kendrick really believe he was taking a harmless jet lag pill?

But Kendrick did not list Zija XM3, a pill that is sold as a weight loss supplement. Don't most people believe that most weight loss pills contain some type of stimulant, even if they are, like Zija, marketed as a health product.

I guess Kendrick might have forgotten to list it on the form, but that seems a little improbable given his age and how many times he's filled out those forms or heard the ATP, the ITF and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) constantly lecture players on how critical it is to follow procedure.

Equally or more far fetched, he claimed that he researched the ingredient MHA on the internet and some how went to the wrong web site when he was looking up the WADA list of banned substances. The site he mistakenly checked out said MHA was A-OK.

Who knows, maybe it did. But given that he could have made a phone call to anti-doping authorities and asked, why would he take such a risk? In fact, when I was researching information on Zija XM3, I came across a large, professional web site on dieting which recommended that people not take it precisely because its label and its web site did not contain a list of all it ingredients.

MHA is a stimulant used by bodybuilders in products like Jack3d.

So you are telling me that Kendrick was willing to take a diet pill to fight jet lag but was unaware of the ingredients? That's not very smart. My guess is the realty is that Kendrick knew he had taken a risk and was hoping that no one would detect it, and he got burned.

So what about that ingredient MHA? Turns out it is all the rage with body builders. Why? Because it is in fact a stimulant. One of the most popular supplements used by bodybuilders is called Jack3d, which contains MHA. If you peruse body building forums, you will find that it is not just some protein concoction.

Here's one review:

"I don't think I can praise Jack3d enough. This is hands down the best pre-workout stimulant I have used. It gives you an abundance of clean clear focused energy that you can use to get the task at hand done. It has no shake or crash as do most other stimulants. I personally have used this in my two following meets in which I set 4 national records and eclipsed the 700lb dead-lift barrier twice."

Is Kendrick's punishment unfair compared to Wayne Odesnik?

Does that sound like a jet lag pill to you? What we can surmise here is that clearly, body builders and WADA, which banned MHA, see it as a performance enhancing drug.

Kendrick badly wants to play the 2011 US Open, because he claims it was going to be his last stint in New York anyway. He does not believe that the sentence fits the so-called crime, and neither do many of his fellow players, who have gone on record in support of him. Meanwhile his lawyers have appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration of Sport and are hoping to get a hearing in New York just prior to the Open.

Kendrick's buddies and fellow players like Amer Delic, James Blake, Ryan Sweeting and John Isner made statements in his favor because they say they cannot possibly believe he was trying to cheat. They say he is just too good of a guy. And all of them unequivocally think that he got a raw a deal because he received the same length of sentence that fellow American player Wayne Odesnik did, and Odesnik was suspended for transporting vials of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) into Australia in 2010. He later had his sentence reduced to year when he cooperated with anti-doping authorities and many players think he is a narc.

Ryan Sweeting: one of the American players defending Kendrick.

"Robert will be first one to tell you that he made a mistake, but everyone will tell you that he didn't do it with an intent to cheat and everyone will also tell you the punishment that he got is way too harsh," Delic said. "Especially if it's compared to what Odesnik has served."

Blake said much the same: "He wasn't doing anything performance enhancing to put him out for a year. For all intents and purposes, to end his career, I think is pretty harsh. Especially when we got a guy [Odesnik] who's playing that I think has done a lot worse."

Sweeting went further: "The punishment he received compared to punishments other players received is absolutely absurd. Richard Gasquet tested positive for cocaine, said that he kissed a girl, and I don't think he received any punishment [Gasquet actually was suspended but CAS later reversed the decision]. I don't understand the logic behind it and all the players are wondering what the hell is going on."

As a reporter what amazes me is that when it's their friend being accused, the players can never concede even the small possibility that he may have taken a short cut. Moreover, in all the years I have covered tennis, I have never heard of one player who was busted for doping actually admit a substance got into his system because was trying to enhance his performance. Everyone has an excuse; everyone was wronged.

Australian rugby player Kurt Foggo also ran into trouble taking MHA.

There's an opinion frequently floated that tennis authorities are covering up for the star players and are only going after the smaller fruit of on the tree. Here's what one big name player once told me when I related that to him: "Maybe it's the lower ranked players getting caught because they are the guys who actually need to take PEDs."

No one, accept for Kendrick and his small circle of friends and family, will ever really know whether he has an intent to cheat. And in a very large sense, it doesn't matter because the independent tribunal appointed by the ITF actually wrote in its summary that it did not believe that Kendrick took the substance as performance enhancer.

The suspension was based on the rule that it is a player's duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his body, and that Kendrick took "an inappropriately relaxed approach to his doping responsibilities."

Kendrick may end up with a place in tennis history he never imagined.

That does not sound like a argument that is going to stand up in front of CAS when it comes to the length of the sentence. Kendrick's lawyers are going to bring up the Odesnik matter and as well as the case of Aussie rugby player Kurt Foggo, whose suspension for an MHA offense (he took Jack3d) was reduced from two years to six months because of evidence he was led astray while looking for information on the internet.

But does mean that Kendrick will see a suspension reduction that will allow him to play the US Open? Maybe or maybe not.

What this entire scenario does mean is that the tennis world is far away from establishing a doping policy that it accepted and consistent and properly enforced.

On court, Kendrick, whose career high ranking is no. 69, would have been no more than footnote in the sport's history. Now his name could live on, just not the way he may have imagined when his career began.