International Tennis Federation backs Andy Murray and Roger Federer's call for tougher anti-doping measures

In a defiant interview, Ricci Bitti insisted that the ITF could be proud of its efforts since tennis’s first dope test was carried out in 1986. He also confirmed that, after a meeting of stakeholders in New York this Tuesday, he hopes to implement a “blood passport” system within a couple of months.

“I can compare the Tennis Federation with others because I am on the International Olympic Committee,” Ricci Bitti told Telegraph Sport, “and I say we can only be proud, because we started very early in anti-doping, and we believe we have a quality programme.

“People forget that the money we spend on anti-doping is taken away from grass-roots development, so we have always to balance. But our review of our programme should be completed in the next week and hopefully the outcome will be more blood tests, more out-of-competition tests, and the biological passport.”

Recent scandals may have shaken our faith in the integrity of sport, but Ricci Bitti points to one positive side-effect: that the likes of Roger Federer and Andy Murray have become vocal in their support for a stringent regime.

“The Lance Armstrong report put doping at the top of the agenda and created problems,” he said. “But for us it is good to have public support from our top players, even if they sometimes think the anti-doping programme is intrusive.

"Historically some of them were complaining about it. But now we are happy to hear Roger or Murray or [Novak] Djokovic saying, ‘OK, we have to do more.’”

As the spotlight moves on from pure physical sports like cycling and athletics, many experts have pointed to tennis as the next potential target. Dick Pound, the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, claims to be “sure” that doping is a factor in tennis. He also recently suggested that the ITF’s system was designed to fail and “cover their butts”.

“Dick Pound is free to talk but in my opinion he is talking a little bit too much,” Ricci Bitti fired back on Thursday. “We believe we have a good programme. It doesn’t mean that we can catch all the cheating people, because the research on pharmaceutical or doping substances is ongoing, and we have to run behind.

“I am sure there is doping. I am sure there is doping in each sport, obviously more in the sports where the performance is impacted directly, like cycling. We are a skill sport, but we still have to be very vigilant because tennis is becoming more physical and recovery is much easier if you take some substance.

“We have to protect the integrity of tennis, but our attitude on the sports side is that a positive doping case is a sad day. The attitude of the other side, as we see with Dick Pound, is that it is a celebration. It is a different mentality.”

Ricci Bitti is particularly irritated by criticism of the £200,000 underspend that regularly appears on the ITF’s £1.2 million annual anti-doping budget.

As he points out, there has to be a contingency fund in case of expensive legal cases, such as the one against Mariano Puerta – the French Open finalist of 2005, who was banned for eight years for using a banned stimulant – a ban that was subsequently reduced to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport – but went bankrupt and failed to pay his fine.

Such financial constraints should ease a little after Tuesday’s meeting between representatives of the ITF, Association of Tennis Professionals, Women’s Tennis Association and the four grand slams. The expectation is that the budget of the anti-doping fund will be doubled, but Ricci Bitti still feels that national governments and agencies should be working harder to support their sporting cousins.

“Wada was meant to be 50/50 between sport and government,” he said, “but 15 years after it was formed, national anti-doping agencies only work in 10 countries, and this is not enough. Tennis should have 2,500 tests run by the ITF on top players and 10,000 run by national bodies on players lower down the pyramid.

“The United Kingdom is strong on anti-doping compared with most other countries. Also Australia, the US, France and Italy. But in South America, there is no agency really working. In the country where we have the Olympic Games, Brazil, we are not ready.”

The ITF was founded 100 years ago on Friday, with a view to standardising tennis rules and equipment across the world. Yet since the professionalisation of tennis, its areas of influence have been narrowed down to some of the more awkward corners of the game.

How do you develop talented prospects from under-resourced countries, like Victoria Azarenka, who spent two years on ITF junior teams? How do you defend against match-fixing, given that recent data from European online betting exchanges put football’s share of the market at 65 per cent, tennis’s at 25 and the rest at 10?

“These things are not well-promoted,” says Ricci Bitti, “because the media is more interested in the big names, but they are all part of our mission.”