Sports Law

Volandri v ITF

On 12 May 2009, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) partially upheld the appeal of the 27 year old Italian tennis player, Filippo Volandri, against the decision of an independent Anti-Doping Tribunal issued on 15 January.

Volandri was found guilty by an independent Anti-Doping Tribunal convened under the 2008 Tennis Anti-Doping Programme to have committed a Doping Offence. The independent Tribunal found that a sample provided by Mr Volandri on 13 March 2008 at the Indian Wells tournament, California, USA, contained an asthma drug, salbutamol, at a concentration greater than 1,000 ng/ml.

The tribunal imposed a three month suspension on Volandri, commencing on 15 January 2009, despite evidence that after receiving the test result, Volandri immediately sent an explanation to the testing official manager stating that he had suffered a serious asthma attack just a few hours before the tournament.

The CAS rejected Volandri's appeal against the original tribunal's finding that he had committed a doping offence, but found that the sanction should be a warning and no ban (not a 3 month ban, as the original tribunal had imposed), and disqualification of only one event's results (not any subsequent results, as the original tribunal had imposed). Volandri was therefore reinstated immediately.