By Charles Bricker

If you're upset about the way the ATP handled the Andre Agassi drug case back in 1997, don't even try to hang this one on former CEO Mark Miles.

I just got off the phone with Mark and he explained that all decisions about drug violations is the 100 percent province of an independent, ITF-appointed panel of certified experts who have no direct connection whatever with the ATP, and that neither Miles nor any other ranking ATP executive has the power to override or amend that panel's decision. In any way.

That is a fact and it was reinforced today by a statement from the ATP, which reads:

“It has always been ATP policy not to comment on anti-doping test results unless and until an anti-doping violation has occurred. Under the tennis anti-doping program it is, and has always been, an independent panel that makes a decision on whether a doping violation has been found. The ATP has always followed this rule and no executive at the ATP has therefore had the authority or ability to decide the outcome of an anti-doping matter.”
Miles, who left the ATP in 2005 after 15 years as its No. 1 official, was as candid as he felt he could be, but he is honoring retroactive commitments not to comment on specific drug cases that came up during his tenure at the men's tour.

"I can't comment on any case. I can't even confirm that there was a case involving Andre. And I'm not going to comment on Andre's book. But I can amplify. I've seen the ATP statement and the statement is true. The ATP program was set up to ensure that any decision on any case was decided by a panel, a tribunal. And there were no exceptions to that.

"I don't know if Andre says anything in his book that is incongruous with that," he said, and then made what I thought was a very interesting remark. "Panels have made decisions that have left some people scratching their heads," said Miles.

In the unlikely event that you missed the Agassi news, excerpts from his autobiography are appearing in a couple of U.S. magazines in which Agassi writes that in 1997 he was ingesting crystal meth as a way of dealing with depression that had set in because of various injuries.

He subsequently tested positive for the drug, he writes in "Open," but lied to the panel, saying that his trainer used to dilute the substance in his soft drinks and that Agassi "unwittingly" drank from one of those sodas.

Whether because his name was "Agassi" or if the panel honestly bought the excuse, it never filed a violations charge against him. There will be, undoubtedly, skeptics who believe that no charge was filed because the panel was influenced and because the idea that Agassi was a drug user would have been public relations destruction for tennis. But there is no evidence to support that view.

Miles recalls that the size and configuration of the panel evolved over the years and, though he couldn't swear to it, he thinks there might have been either two or three panelists in 1997.

If the panel had charged Agassi, the results of the test would have been made public, as they have in a number of cases, including two involving high-profile players -- Mats Wilander and Petr Korda.

Charles Bricker can be reached at bricker@tennisnews.com