Marino comeback delayed indefinitely

–

SAGUENAY, Québec – Canadian Rebecca Marino was all ready to start the second chapter of her tennis career.

She traveled to Montreal from her home in Vancouver, practiced for a few days, and made the five-hour drive to Saguenay Friday.

The plan was to arrive at the $60,000 ITF Pro Circuit tournament there before the 6 p.m. deadline to sign in for the qualifying and prepare for a first-round match on Saturday.

But the 26-year-old forgot one detail.

It was a crucial, significant detail.

Marino never told the International Tennis Federation, the Canadian anti-doping program and Tennis Canada that she was coming back to play. In fact, she didn’t notify them at all.

And that means Marino can’t play – for at least six months.

Retiring easier than un-retiring

The official retirement form is filed with the WTA. It’s a simple form – eight lines including name, last tournament played, official retirement date, e-mail and so on.

The retirement then is on-passed to the ITF, which runs the anti-doping program. And then the player is placed on the federation’s retirement list.

It’s not mandatory. But by not making it official, players subject themselves to all of the restrictions and rules – and tests – of the anti-doping program.

Marino was added to the list, effective Feb. 20, 2013.

For players retired as of 2015, the time period was dropped to three months.

If a player wants to “un-retire”, they have to reverse the process. And that includes alerting all of the proper authorities.

The reinstatement form isn’t that much more complex than the retirement form.

Marino can appeal it. But the only stated reason for waiving the six-month period is “where the strict application of that requirement would be manifestly unfair to a Player,” per the ITF rules.

It doesn’t spell out what it considers “manifestly unfair”. But in other areas, such as provisional doping suspensions, it indicates that such exceptions are rare.

No exceptions – not even a former No. 1

The reasons for that pre-return testing period are obvious, and so need not be stated here.

It’s a rule that got retired American player Andy Roddick a few years ago, when he wanted to play doubles with his great friend Mardy Fish to help him say goodbye to pro tennis at the US Open.

As it happens, Roddick officially retired four days before Marino did, on Feb. 16, 2013. In his case, a three-month period on the anti-doping program was required, and there wasn’t enough time.

Eventually, Roddick did apply for reinstatement, which became effective July 16, 2015.

Why Marino didn’t know about this or didn’t make sure she completed whatever paperwork was required is a question mark. Tennis Canada would not make her available to answer a few questions, not even on site.

The Vancouver native only began training again with an eye towards coming back to the game at the beginning of September. Even had she looked into all the details on the very first day she stepped on the court for real, she still would have been more than four months short.

Open Court had contacted both the ITF and the WTA Tour this morning just to ensure that Marino had, indeed, completed the reinstatement process (sometimes you have an intuition …).

But with the WTA Tour having basically shifted operations to Singapore for the Tour finals, no immediate response was forthcoming. As for the ITF, well, it was … Friday afternoon. If either provides additional information, we’ll update the story.