Andre Agassi’s positive drug test was well-guarded secret at the ATP

A high-ranking ATP executive nodded toward me, indicating he had something to tell me in private. We walked to where we couldn’t be heard and he said words to the effect that we had a major anti-doping violation on our hands.

This wasn’t a player ranked No. 200 that only his family knew was pursuing a professional tennis career, but "the big fish" that critics of the men’s professional tennis tour suspected we were unwilling to hook because of how it might taint the game.

The player was Andre Agassi.

I was vice president of communications for the ATP then and part of the chain of how anti-doping violations and other issues were handled. I was usually informed by the tour’s chief executive officer, Mark Miles, and my task was to prepare a Q&A, anticipating everything the media might ask if a suspension was announced and to include the basic facts about the ATP’s anti-doping policy.

Once the Q&A was reviewed and approved by Miles, it was distributed to tour executives in our offices in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Monte Carlo, London and Sydney. This was the script they would use when questioned by the media.

So, it was unusual that I learned about Agassi’s positive test from the executive, who will remain nameless, but I figured I would be hearing from the CEO in short order anyway. This news could have far-reaching repercussions, as it is having now after Agassi revealed drug use in his soon-to-be-published autobiography, Open.

But I never heard a word from Miles, from the day I was told until I left the ATP for the Star-Telegram in August of 1998. I didn’t ask, either, because I didn’t want the executive who confided in me to be reprimanded — or worse. But it was troubling knowing we had a positive test from a player who was one of the best-known athletes in the world, and yet, the crisis management plan wasn’t being put into motion.

There could be mitigating circumstances, I reasoned. The ATP’s anti-doping policy at the time stipulated that a player was not in violation of the program until he had exhausted all appeals heard by an independent panel — positive test notwithstanding. That was a provision that many players didn’t know and many in the media didn’t accept.

Nowadays, the International Tennis Federation oversees drug testing in tennis, in accordance with the rules and regulations of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Because of this potential bombshell, I thought that perhaps the tour decided to tighten the loop and minimize further any chance of a disclosure — even accidentally — of Agassi’s positive test.

I admit to even wondering whether it was a matter of trust, that after having been a reporter for 24 years before joining the tour, there was some concern that I would leak this headline-making news to the media, or someday use it for my own purposes.

I never received an answer. The Agassi case was as much a mystery when I left the tour as when I first heard from that unsuspecting executive who broke protocol.