LONDON — A professional tennis player who claimed a positive methamphetamine drug test was caused by a kiss was suspended for four years by the International Tennis Integrity Authority on Friday.
Venezuelan international Gonzalo Oliveira was provisionally suspended in January after testing positive in November 2024 while competing in the ATP Challenger tournament in Manzanillo, Mexico. Both his samples A and B contained prohibited drugs.
The Portuguese-born player denied taking drugs and made his claims at an independent tribunal hearing, but Oliveira was ruled unable to prove the presence of drugs was unintentional.
Oliveira will be given credit for serving his interim suspension and will be eligible to compete professionally again on January 16, 2029.
Oliveira reached a career-high No. 77 in the doubles world rankings in August 2020.
This is not the first time an athlete has said that kissing caused a positive drug test result.
French Olympic fencer Isaola Tibas was cleared of doping charges by a court of arbitration in July after a judge found she was contaminated with the anabolic substance ostarine by kissing her American partner over a nine-day period in 2024. She was then cleared by the International Fencing Federation’s court a few weeks before the Paris Olympics and was allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics.
In 2009, Richard Gasquet escaped a long doping ban after an International Tennis Federation court panel ruled that he had inadvertently ingested cocaine by kissing a woman in a nightclub.
