PLAYERS ADJUST TO DRUG TESTING

Friday, November 15, 2002 - Tennis players, long trained to leave every
ounce on the court, now must save at least a few drops for later. As other
sports grapple with steroid whispers - and with one anti-doping expert
calling the women's game muscle-bound and drug-ridden - professional female
players are being tested more often for performance enhancers, surrendering
urine samples in their homes whenever the tour's "collectors" come
knocking. But some of the biggest names are calling it an invasion of privacy.

This fall, the Women's Tennis Association has stepped up random,
out-of-competition drug testing on its top 100 players, sending officials
to their homes to gather specimens. Players may have to give as many as
eight samples a year, including testing at tournaments that began in the
mid-1990s.

But the WTA's surprise home visits - launched in the summer - disturb some
of the game's stars. Jennifer Capriati argued the tour had no right to
perform drug tests offseason, and Venus Williams vowed never to "let anyone
in my house if I'm not expecting them."

Two players competing in Thursday night's Rebif MS Tennis Classic at the
University of Denver grudgingly agree with out-of-competition testing as a
way to ensure the game is drug-free. But Martina Navratilova and Mary Joe
Fernandez said the program could be intrusive.

"You can take it too far," said Navratilova, who had to endure steroid
speculation during the height of her career when she was bigger and better
than most of her opponents. "I'm not having people knocking on my door. I
wouldn't have liked it in my time. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with it
because I never cheated.

"It's like going to the airport and having people search me. Am I a
terrorist? No. You know you're not guilty but they don't know you're not
guilty. It's just a necessary evil, I guess."

"They're talking about doing random house visits, which is a little bit
invasive," added Fernandez, who retired as a pro in 2000. "But you want
everybody to know the sport is clean."

Lately, however, some doubt has been creeping in. In July, the head of the
Australian Sports Drug Agency gave voice to what some fans have been
whispering as players gained bulk and their serves gained horsepower. John
Mendoza compared women's tennis now with women's swimming in 1994 - when
the Chinese team won 12 of 16 world championship events. Many of those
women later tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

"Tennis is heavily under the influence of doping, and they are in denial if
they don't accept that," Mendoza said. "If you want to be No. 1 in the
world in women's tennis, you are going to have to be abnormal in body type."

WTA officials bristle at the remarks, and emphasize that their strict plan
has found just one violator: Lourdes Dominguez Lino, who tested positive in
March for cocaine at a tournament. She was suspended for three months.

"Here is Mr. Mendoza, a respected figure in the world of anti-doping, and
he's claiming that by looking at a top female tennis player's physique, he
can draw the conclusion that tennis is rife with doping," said Tandy
O'Donoghue, the WTA's chief legal officer. "It was horrifying, nothing
short of horrifying."

The WTA began obtaining in-home samples, which must be provided by the
players in direct view of female collectors, because "frankly our players
were clamoring for it," O'Donoghue said. "They're tired of the criticism.
Some people are a little uncomfortable with the strength and talent our
athletes have. But if that's what we have to do to make it clear our
athletes are competing legitimately, then that's what we're going to do."

Under its program, the WTA sends a tour official and a collector
unannounced to a player's residence. If the player isn't home but is due
back soon, the testers will wait. If they're told the player is nearby,
perhaps training at a club, the testers will drive there and collect a
specimen.

"You've got to do it," Navratilova said. "Drugs are getting more
sophisticated. It's plausible for people to be cheating offseason and then
come on tour, allowing a period of time to get clean but still getting
benefits from the drug."