LONDON: US Open semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer must wait to see whether she can return to action even though a Belgian court has suspended a one-year ban imposed on her for violating anti-doping regulations.

BRUSSELS: US Open semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer and her Belgian compatriot Xavier Malisse had their one-year doping bans provisionally lifted by a Belgian court this morning.

Wickmayer, the world No 18, was suspended in November by the Flemish Doping Tribunal (VDT) for failing to fulfill the 'whereabouts' rule while Malisse was also punished for missing a drugs test.

XAVIER MALISSE and Yanina Wickmayer will find out on Jan 7 if their year-long bans for missing drug tests are to be provisionally lifted, a civil court announced here this morning.

At a hearing attended by Wickmayer, lawyers for the two Belgian tennis players asked for the bans to be suspended until the State Council has ruled on the validity of the decision of the Flemish Doping Tribunal (VDT) to ban them.

STOCKHOLM: The World Anti-doping Agency (Wada) are to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to demand tougher penalties against suspended Belgian tennis players Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse, WADA's legal director said this morning.

PARIS: World No 2 Rafael Nadal said yesterday tennis was free of doping and repeated his view that the testing procedures were too tough.

“I am the fi rst who wants a clean sport, more than anyone, believe me, but the way it (controls) are being done is, in my opinion, not right,” the Spaniard told reporters at the Paris Masters.

Nadal, who had previously accused controllers of “harassing” the players, said he had a problem with players having to inform anti-doping authorities of their whereabouts on a daily basis.

BALI: The governing body of women’s tennis would like to see the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) revise their “whereabouts rule” to give players more fl exibility when they are competing.

Last week, Belgian players Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse were both handed one-year suspensions for failing to notify their national doping agency where they could be reached, under a ruling the WTA believe is a little too stringent.

LONDON: Belgium player Yanina Wickmayer, a semifinalist at this year’s US Open, was handed a one-year ban yesterday for failing to comply with doping regulations, a report on the Belgium Tennis Federation’s website said.

Fellow Belgian Xavier Malisse has also been suspended for a year for a different doping offence according to the report on the website (www.vtv.be).

BRUSSELS: Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse will not face suspensions despite falling foul of drug-testing rules, the Belga Press agency reported this morning.

The disciplinary commission of the Flemish Doping Tribunal (VDT) has instead requested a reprimand for the duo.

Twenty-year-old Wickmayer, the world No 20 who made a stunning run to the US Open semifinals, was accused of failing on three occasions to fulfill the Adams (Anti-Doping Administration and Management System) requirements.

LINZ (Austria): Yanina Wickmayer defeated unseeded Czech Petra Kvitova 6-3, 6-4 to win the WTA event at Linz yesterday for the second title of her career, after victory at Estoril in May. The third-seeded Belgian, who turns 20 today, was always ahead in what was a mediocre final.

NEW YORK: When Yanina Wickmayer found the strength at age nine to cope with her mother’s death from cancer, she forged the steely determination that has put the 19-year-old Belgian in the US Open semifinals.