Gasquet free to return

Richard Gasquet has been cleared to resume his tennis career, the ITF has confirmed.

Frenchman's positive cocaine test was inadvertent, tribunal accepts

Richard Gasquet has been cleared to resume his tennis career, the International Tennis Federation has confirmed. The Frenchman, 23, was provisionally suspended after testing positive for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, at the Miami Masters in March. An independent anti-doping tribunal accepted Gasquet's explanation that the drug had entered his system via "inadvertent contamination in a nightclub". The tribunal ruled it would be unjust and disproportionate to impose a 12-month suspension and, instead, handed out a two-and-a-half month ban. The sanction runs from May 1 until July 15, leaving Gasquet - currently 32nd in the world rankings - free to make an immediate return to the ATP Tour. "I am really happy, to put it simply, to return to the courts. It's a great joy. Justice has been done," said Gasquet. "It has been terrible in the last two months, an extraordinary pain. I couldn't go to either the French Open or Wimbledon."