Marin Cilic given nine-month ban after positive drugs test

The fog surrounding Marin Cilic's self-imposed exile from the circuit has finally cleared after the International Tennis Federation handed him a nine-month suspension for a positive dope test.

The sentence, which has been back-dated to May 1 and will run until the end of January, might seem -lenient. That is because the ITF accepted Cilic's claim that the banned substance, a stimulant called nikethamide, had been ingested inadvertently.

Even so, Cilic, 24, says he plans to appeal via the Court of Arbitration for Sport. "I am frustrated that I cannot talk more about the case at this time," he said, "but I will do so as soon as the legal process is over."

The ITF acknowledges that the nikethamide came in a packet of Coramine -glucose tablets, a dietary supplement that Cilic had been using regularly and which in the form he normally took did not contravene the World Anti-Doping Agency code.

According to Croatian sources, Cilic's supply ran out during the Monte Carlo Masters in March. He sent his mother down to the -pharmacy to buy another packet, but did not realise that the French version of the product contained different chemicals. There was a warning notice in the packaging, but it escaped him. It is understood that the levels in Cilic's system were so low that he would probably have passed his urine test, which was held at Munich's BMW Open on April 1, if he had taken it a day later. Cilic has not played since Wimbledon.