Marat Safin charged that Andre Agassi should give up titles and prize money for his admitted drug use. Many thought that the suggestion was ludicrous and Safin spoke solely out of anger. Upon further inspection, there is a lot of validity in the call for Agassi to be punished by the ATP or ITF.
No one with any knowledge of Crystal Method or similar recreational drugs would argue that a competitive edge would be gained. However, that should not be the gauge for judging if Agassi should be penalized. A positive test for recreational drugs constitutes a two-year ban from the sport under the ITF rules. If Agassi had been properly banned, he would have had to forfeit any wins he collected between the time the test had been administered and the time he was informed of a positive drug test.

Although it would have been impossible to predict Andre Agassi’s downward spiral and subsequent resurgence to punish him for future victories, at that moment, Agassi had knowingly and intentionally stolen from the ATP. However small the amount of money or few the wins, that window is fair game for the tour to take action. With that in mind, Agassi set out on the comeback trail in a two-year period where he should have—for all intents and purposes—been banned. Had the two-year ban been enforced, Agassi would not have been able to complete the career Grand Slam by winning the French Open in 1999.

There is more involved than just Agassi winning between 1997 and 1999. Pete Sampras could still be tied with Roger Federer for the most major titles and Todd Martin could have won his first and only Grand Slam if Agassi was not playing. These players, among the many other players Agassi defeated have the right to feel slighted.

The statute of limitations has passed for the Anti-Doping Agency (ADA) to take any action, but neither the ATP nor ITF are likely to impose sanctions retroactively.  The reasons could be far more serious than just embarrassment. Their handling of the positive drug test was at best, poor and at worst, criminal. The flimsy excuse tendered by Agassi for failing the drug test would not have held up under the scrutiny of an independent doping organization like the ADA. Accidentally or not, Agassi would have known he was under the influence of a drug as pwerful as Crystal Meth once ingested and the onus would have been on him to report the incident, making his argument too weak to overturn a ban.

by EJ Jacobs