SPAIN'S top tennis player Rafa Nadal is suing former French sports minister €100,000 for slander after she claimed in a talk show that Mallorca prodigy had been off the circuit for seven months due to positive doping tests.
Nadal was forced to scratch from the London 2012 Olympics – where he would have been flag-bearer for Spain – after a knee injury flared up during Wimbledon just before, leading to his crashing out in the first round.
He was out of action until the start of the following season.
Roselyne Bachelot, who was France's minister for sports between 2007 and 2010 inclusive, said during an interview on the national TV channel D8 in March last year that 'everyone knew' Rafa must have been suspended for taking performance-enhancing drugs, and that his injury was a cover up.
“It's common knowledge that Rafael Nadal's famous injury, when he was off for seven months, was really because he showed up positive in a dope test,” she said on the programme.
Nadal's solicitor in France, Patrick Maisonneuve, speaking at the initial hearing in Paris on Friday – which Mme Bachelot did not attend – said the ex-minister's comments were particularly unfortunate given the position she was in and the 'huge weight' this lent to them.
Her role, albeit no longer current, meant her assertions could have had 'significant consequences' for Rafa in terms of 'present and future sponsors', M. Maisonneuve said.
The solicitor showed Rafa's medical file showing he had indeed suffered a tendon injury in his left knee.
Meanwhile, Mme Bachelot's lawyer Olivier Chappuis, defending, said his client 'based her comments especially on statements made to the press by other sportspersons', citing Belgium's Christophe Rochus and Austria's Daniel Kollerer.
“There is a great gulf between the successes he [Nadal] achieves and the fragile nature of the doping tests carried out,” Chappuis said at the hearing.
“Which sponsors have dumped Rafael Nadal as a result of [Mme Bachelot]'s comments? None.”
The prosecution, however, considers the charges against the former minister to be 'particularly serious' and recommend she faces a criminal sentence.
This will be in addition to any compensation she may have to pay ATP world number one tennis player Rafael Nadal.
The final hearing is scheduled for Thursday, November 16.
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