INQUIRER Sports

BASEL – Frenchman Richard Gasquet remains outwardly relaxed as he prepares to miss next week's Paris Masters for the second year in succession to attend a hearing in Lausanne on Tuesday which could decide the fate of his tennis career.

Gasquet refused to blame that stress on his 6-1, 6-3 loss to Marco Chiudinelli in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoors on Friday.

"I know what I have to do Tuesday," said Gasquet as an ATP representative tried to deflect questions about his controversial doping case which resulted in an acquittal now being appealed by both the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and WADA, the world sport doping watchdog.

Gasquet said Friday he is heading back to Paris before the date at the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) in Lausanne.

"Of course I'm disappointed not to have played Roland Garros and Bercy this year," said Gasquet, who missed three months of play in the spring while a positive cocaine test went into an appeal which eventually resulted in his name being cleared.

Gasquet, a former top 10 player and a Wimbledon semi-finalist, had been provisionally suspended in May before serving a two and a half month retroactive ban.

He got back into the game in late August before the US Open after last playing on April 30.

The ITF – moving against it's own anti-doping tribunal which found in the player's favor after Gasquet said trace amounts of the drug came from a girl he kissed in a Miami club – is asking for a one-to-two-year ban.

"This is not affecting my tennis. I'm young, I'm 23, and I'll be back to play at the French events."

Gasquet remains confident about the future of his career.

"I'm around the top 50, it's tough not to play for three months, I'm coming back for sure. I made the quarters this week a big event, it's not so bad. Today I just couldn't play against him, he was too good.

"I was feeling pain my shoulder and that bothered me. I tried my best but it was not enough today."