French tennis player Alize Cornet has avoided a doping ban after an independent tribunal cleared her of missing a third test within 12 months, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has announced.
The 28-year-old, who is best known in this country for beating Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2014, missed tests in November 2016 and July 2017 when a doping control officer arrived at her Cannes apartment to test her on behalf of the ITF.
On both occasions, Cornet had specified she would be available for no-notice tests between 0800 and 0900 but had left her apartment early to get to the airport for a tournament.
According to World Anti-Doping Agency rules, three missed tests within a year are the equivalent of a failed test, so Cornet was now on two strikes, despite successfully passing tests taken at her apartment in March and October of 2017.
That third strike appeared to come when the same doping control officer attempted to test her again in Cannes on October 24, 2017.
The drug-tester rang the player's doorbell at 0800, 0815, 0830 and 0845, watched the doorway from her car parked outside the building and called the player's mobile at 0857, with the call going to Cornet's voicemail.
But, in a case that has clear parallels with British cyclist Lizzie Armitstead's successful appeal against a similar charge and British distance runner Sir Mo Farah's reason for a missed test, Cornet's legal team successfully persuaded the tribunal to strike out the third missed test.
According to the tribunal's written decision, the doorbell of her apartment was broken and Cornet had asked her father to fix it while she was away.
She did not realise it had not been fixed until two days after the missed test when her father arrived with a repairman. She did not know she had missed a test for a further five days.
As the doping control officer admitted she had not heard the doorbell ring, had not tried to ring the doorbells of any of the other apartments and did not approach any of the three individuals who left the building between 0800 and 0900, all of whom testified on Cornet's behalf, the three-strong panel ruled she had not tried hard enough to find Cornet, although the decision was not unanimous.
"In the event, we find by majority that the ITF have not satisfied the burden on them to show that the (doping control officer) did what was reasonable in the circumstances to try to locate the athlete," the panel wrote.
Cornet has reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon and was ranked as high as 11th in 2009. She has slipped back to 37th now but was twice a runner-up in events last season.
