Firebrand Australian tennis coach Marinko Matosevic has been banned for four years on a series of blood doping charges related to a playing career that ended last decade.
Matosevic, who courted controversy during a career in which he peaked at a ranking of 39, has more recently been active as the coach of Aussie players Chris O’Connell and Jordan Thompson but that association ended midway through last year.
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Speculation was rife last year that Matosevic, whose antics bemused champions including Rafael Nadal, was in breach of doping rules and the Melburnian confirmed this in a blistering attack on the International Tennis Integrity Agency last month.
At the time, the 40-year-old said he was withdrawing from the investigation that concluded on Tuesday he had committed five anti-doping rule violations between 2018 and 2020 at the tail-end of a career lasting just over a decade.
Matosevic, who also won four Challenger level titles, issued a statement in February pre-empting a hearing he was due to be involved in when admitting he underwent a blood transfusion in Morelos, Mexico, in 2018.
In the statement to specialist tennis site The First Serve, he said he was so disgusted with himself he retired from tennis a week later but was confirming the break with a “heavy heart and clear mind”.
The right-hander, who infamously messed with Nadal’s water bottles in the Monte Carlos Masters in 2013, then launched an attack on the tennis integrity body for what he claimed was a “corrupt and unjust” process that he would no longer be part of.
In a statement on Tuesday, the ITIA noted Matosevic’s confession regarding the blood transfusion and also his failure to appear at a hearing last month when issuing him with the maximum ban.
It is yet to release a full written decision, noting there are parallel investigations ongoing. But in a lengthy statement it outlined that not only was Matosevic doping himself, he was active in assisting another player to cheat as well.
A panel headed by Michael Heron KC noted that his actions “went far beyond passive association and constitute intentional participation” and that his conduct “strikes at the integrity of the anti-doping framework”.
It said that Matosevic’s doping first came to light in 2024 when the ITIA uncovered “compelling evidence of potential rule violations”.
A Davis Cup representative who won two of the four rubbers he played when Australia was a tier below the World Group, Matosevic was found guilty of using a prohibited method through blood doping and facilitating another player to blood dope.
It also referenced a separate charge of Matosevic possessing and using clenbuterol, an asthma drug also effective in muscle building and stripping fat, but said that while it was likely, it could not be sustained for a lack of evidence.
In the period related to the charges, Matosevic played Challenger events through Australia, where he reached two second rounds, before falling easily in Morelos and then in the second round of a lower-tier event in Indian Wells.
During his career Matosevic courted controversy regularly. He was criticised for his tirade towards an umpire during a match in the Cincinnati Masters in 2014 and condemned for comments regarding women’s tennis, among other incidents.
After three years on the sidelines, he returned to coach O’Connell and Thompson in partnerships that produced good results, with the former peaking at 53 in the world and the latter claiming an ATP Tour title in Mexico two years ago.
Neither Thompson, who is currently sidelined with injury, nor O’Connell, who won an opening round qualifying match for the Miami Masters on Monday, are associated with the Matosevic case and there are no allegations related to them.