ITIA announces shocking ban for USA's Jenson Brooksby

• Tennis News
• ATP Tennis

American tennis player Jenson Brooksby, 22, has been given an 18-month ban by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for committing three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period. In July, former world No 33 Brooksby accepted a provisional suspension from the ITIA but denied any wrongdoing.

Today, the ITIA announced a year-and-a-half ban for Brooksby. The suspension officially started on July 5th and will be expiring on January 4th, 2025. Brooksby, who made the Auckland semifinal in his first tournament of the year, hasn't played since suffering a third-round loss at the Australian Open.

Since the Australian Open, the 22-year-old American has had two wrist surgeries. If the suspension stands and Brooksby doesn't play again until 2025 January, the American will go two full years without participating in any tournaments.

Brooksby didn't fail a doping test, but if a player has three "whereabouts failures" within a 12-month period, it is subjected to a ban.

The ITIA's statement on Brooksby

"The independent tribunal, established by Sport Resolutions, met on 10 October 2023, hearing from the player and several witnesses including the Doping Control Officer (DCO) who was involved in the disputed second missed test.

Brooksby accepted that the first and third missed tests were valid so only the second missed test was in dispute before the tribunal. Having considered the evidence, the tribunal found that Brooksby’s degree of fault for the missed test was high.

The tribunal found that the DCO “took all reasonable steps to locate the player” in the disputed test and the player was negligent by not making themself available for testing during the identified time slot. Brooksby, who has a career-high ATP singles ranking of 33, elected to take a voluntary provisional suspension shortly after being notified of the charge and as such, the sanction will be backdated to 5 July 2023 and end on 4 January 2025.

During this time, the player is prohibited from playing in, coaching at, or attending any tennis event authorised or sanctioned by the tennis members of the ITIA: ATP, ITF, WTA, Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open," the ITIA said in a statement. The ITIA also said Brooksby has 21 days to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).