Targeting Spaniards? (Updated)

Darren Cahill reported three times in the last 48 hours on ESPN that David Ferrer, Tommy Robredo, Fernando Verdasco and Rafael Nadal, were all awakened at their hotel rooms at 7:30 AM a few days ago for doping tests. According to Cahill, Robredo apparently had a match later that day and had his preparation disrupted. Toni Nadal was livid. Ferrer had gone to the bathroom five minutes before the call and had to wait in the lobby of the hotel for two hours until he had to pee again. Maybe that racquet smash had something to do with this.

Cahill said nothing about any other players still in the draw being awakened and tested. He made it seem as though only the Spaniards were targeted in this way.

Make of it what you will.

Oh, and make of this what you will, too.

UPDATE: Ferrer has spoken out. (From the comments. Thanks, oddman)

París, 29 May (EFE).- David Ferrer today joined Rafael Nadal in criticising the surprise antidoping tests, saying it is a dictatorship and the players can hardly do anything, that they scarcely have any privacy.

"In my personal case, they really messed me up because I played a five-set match against Keifer on Wednesday that ended at 9 pm. I finished being treated by my physio at 2 a.m. and at 7 in the morning they were knocking at my door to do an antidoping test," said Ferrer. "I think that is very badly done, because they could have done it as easily in the hotel or at the club. I got only five hours sleep and that really offended me: treating players like that, and even more so at such an important tournament as Roland Garros. It's not an excuse for why I lost today, but it was badly done," he added.

"It's ridiculous because we are subjected to 15 to 20 antidoping tests a year and it's your private life, your privacy, and I can't possibly know every day whether I'm going to be in Valencia, Xavea, Almusafes or Santa Rita, so it's a lottery in other words. It hardly seems possible that these things happen and you can't even have your own privacy... but it's up to them," he went on.

"It's senseless, I've already had two tests here, that one the other day and one right now, and what can I say, it's ridiculous. They don't get anything out of this, except more tension among the players. I don't think they're getting anywhere with this," said Ferrer, who doesn't see any solution to the matter, not even them organising a boycott.

"Let's just wait and see who's got what it takes to tell them he's not playing here. At the beginning of the year, 80% of the players complained, but there's not much we can do: "Put a pistol to their head?", and not playing is not an option, the tournaments are not to blame. They're the ones that ought to stop and speak to the players, because this is like a dictatorship," he said.