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Comment by brookside | Hacker News Reader

There is also quite a bit of incredulity that both Nadal and Federer are performing as they do without performance enhancing drugs.

Nadal’s one-time doctor was nabbed, but his blood bags were ordered destroyed by Spanish court:

http://en.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/205055.html

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I’m curious to what extent this is just innuendo and FUD, and how much there’s legitimate speculation (if there could be such a thing) as to Nadal and/or Federer doping. I’ve never heard even a whisper of doping suspicion with Roger, and this is the first I’ve heard of Rafa, but I don’t follow the sport super closely so maybe there are storylines I’ve missed. I know there have been other high profile tennis players to get caught doping, but my impression was that it was uncommon among today’s athletes. The way your comment is worded suggests that many in the know suspect either or both of doping — is this accurate?

I will fully admit to having no inside knowledge, or any concrete beliefs about the subject, really! I only have read a few blog posts which seemed reasonable enough. Such as:

http://tennispurist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-curious-case-of...

Some famous french tennisman (yannick noah, father of joachim, playing in NBA) accused rafa, as well as pretty much all pro spanish sportsmen in general, of doping, a very long time ago, at the time when nadal started to look overly dominant on the french open. Most people at the timr thought it was just pure jealousy or just a way to appear in the news. I now wonder if he didn’t have insider information, though.

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