International Tennis Federation president David Haggerty believes players who fail drugs tests and receive provisional bans should be named to avoid secrecy within the sport.
Haggerty is confident that making it transparent and naming the offenders would help eradicate suspicions about players who in the past have been known to mysteriously disappear from action while the suspension is served before the results are announced.
Russia's five-time grand slam champion Maria Sharapova shocked the sporting world by announcing in March she had failed a drugs test at the Australian Open two months earlier after testing positive for banned drug meldonium.
The 29-year-old former world number one is currently awaiting the outcome of an anti-doping committee hearing, which was held last week, with a four-year ban the maximum possible punishment.
Regarding Sharapova's case, Haggerty admitted he was unclear over the details of the pending outcome as he told The Guardian: "I really can't tell you what (the date of a decision) would be but what I can tell you is, generally, it's about a three-week process from when the hearing occurs until something is published."
Croatian Marin Cilic was given a nine-month ban in 2013 after the ITF said traces of banned stimulant nikethamide were found in a sample he gave at a tournament in Munich.
It was misleadingly claimed at the time that t he player had left Wimbledon because of injury, though the ITF accepted his account that he had ingested a stimulant inadvertently.
Haggerty added: "We've discussed the possibility of announcing provisional suspensions, as a way to be transparent as to what's going on.
"I think that you'll see after Wimbledon some announcements because each of seven bodies has to go back to their stakeholders and have formal approval of things. But we understand the importance of transparency.
"We're also doing that with the integrity unit; they've begun to publish a quarterly report.
"I think what will happen in the future with provisional suspensions is it would become known."
Along with drug-taking, match-fixing is another negative Haggerty hopes to eradicate within tennis with a zero-tolerance approach from the ITF.
He said: "The seven stakeholders have gotten together here and understand that integrity is the most important part of our reputation. Zero tolerance is really what we believe in. No player, no administrator, no official is above the law.
"We've got six regional associations and 211 member nations and we've just got to make sure we do everything we can to keep tennis clean. We want the players to participate, we want fans to believe that what they see on the court is a key sport.
"We want to continue to put rigour into the system, to do more biological passports, to do more out-of-competition testing. We want to protect the clean athletes, and the majority of them are.
"We will keep more samples for a longer period of time, so, as new testing comes, you may discover some things that you didn't discover early on. You see that with what the IOC (International Olympic Committee) are doing with the Beijing (and London) Olympics."
Source: PA
