PARIS (AP) Former French minister for health and sport Roselyne Bachelot has been ordered to pay 10,000 euros ($11,800) in damages to Rafael Nadal after accusing him of doping.
In March last year, Bachelot said on a French television show that Nadal’s seven-month injury layoff in 2012 was “probably due to a positive doping test.”
Nadal, who has won 16 Grand Slam titles, filed a defamation suit against Bachelot in Paris.
Bachelot was also ordered by the French tribunal to pay Nadal a suspended fine of 500 euros ($590).
In April 2016, Nadal wrote to the president of the International Tennis Federation asking for all of his drug-test results and blood profile records to be made public. In the same letter, the Spanish player said of Bachelot: “It is unacceptable and mostly unfair that someone that should have knowledge of sports to a certain point and degree can publicly say something like this with no proof or evidence.”