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Tennis boss blasts Nebiolo

It's now the turn of the International Tennis Federation to tee off on athletics boss Primo Nebiolo.

ITF president Brian Tobin, in a brusque letter to the president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, rejected Nebiolo's recent criticism of the doping control programs in tennis.

"I must ask you to desist from making these uninformed and groundless ad-hoc statements about the federation's activities and the game of tennis generally, and I require the courtesy of an acknowledgment of this request," Tobin says in his letter.

The full transcript has been published in the ITF's latest weekly bulletin.

In a statement released last week, Nebiolo singled out tennis, volleyball and cycling as sports which had refused to sign an Olympic accord for harmonizing anti-drug programs.

Tobin points out in his letter that he had previously written to Nebiolo, as early as December 1997, explaining the ITF's anti-doping program.

Saying he had not got a reply to that letter, Tobin said, "I am still available at any time to discuss these matters in detail."

Tobin said in his letter the ITF carries out more than 1,000 tests a year, that its anti-drug program has been approved by the International Olympic Committee and that it is conducted with the full cooperation with the ATP and WTA tours.

"We are proud of the fact that our testing program, although comprehensive, has revealed only isolated positive results," Tobin said. "I might add that we have never suffered a positive test at an Olympic Games -- a record, I am sure, that some other Olympic sports would envy."

A week earlier, international volleyball federation president Ruben Acosta accused Nebiolo of making 'totally false' allegations about drug-testing in volleyball and said Nebiolo should concentrate on fighting "systematic doping" in track and field.