Martina Hingis Coke Addict Quits Tennis

Freddy @ Gone Hollywood | Thursday, November 1, 2007

Former tennis great Martina Hingis has tested positive for cocaine and announced her retirement from the game.

Martina Hingis Coke Addict Quits Tennis Photo 1 Muscles

Martina Hingis said Thursday she has been accused of testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon, but she denied using the drug. She also announced her retirement from professional tennis. “I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous that I’ve decided to confront it head on by talking to the press,” she said. “I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely 100 percent innocent.”

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Hingis said she was accused by “an outsource testing company” of taking cocaine during Wimbledon. She said she was “shocked and appalled” when notified that her urine sample came back positive after the loss to Granville. “They say that cocaine increases self-confidence and creates a type of euphoria,” she said in a statement. “I don’t know. I only know that if I were to try to hit the ball while in any state of euphoria, it simply wouldn’t work. I would think that it would be impossible for anyone to maintain the coordination required to play top class tennis while under the influence of drugs. And I know one other thing — I would personally be terrified of taking drugs.”

Hingis said she later underwent a privately arranged hair test which came back negative for cocaine. The official backup “B” sample test on her Wimbledon urine sample, however, tested positive for the drug.

Hingis said she hired an attorney who found “various inconsistencies” with the urine sample taken during Wimbledon. “He is also convinced that the doping officials mishandled the process and would not be able to prove that the urine that was tested for cocaine actually came from me,” she said.

Hingis said it could take years to fight her case and decided it was time to retire. “I have no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials,” she said. “The fact is that it is more and more difficult for me, physically, to keep playing at the top of the game. “And frankly, accusations such as these don’t exactly provide me with motivation to even make another attempt to do so.”