Russia's eight-strong tennis team for the Rio Olympics was cleared to play by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Sunday after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) opted against a blanket ban for state-backed sports doping. The ITF said that the players nominated by Russia all met the requirements set down to guarantee their participation at the Games. All eight have "been subject to a rigorous anti-doping testing program outside Russia". This included a total of 205 samples collected since 2014, of which 83 (40%) were collected in-competition and 122 (60%) out-of-competition. Also 111 (54%) were urine samples and 94 (46%) were blood samples. "The ITF believes that this is sufficient for the eight Russian tennis players to meet the relevant requirement of today's decision of the IOC Executive Board," said an ITF statement. The Russian team is made up of Andrey Kuznetsov, Evgeny Donskoy and Teymuraz Gabashvili in the men's singles. In women's singles, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Darya Kasatkina and Ekaterina Makarova will play while Elena Vesnina features in the women's doubles. Russia will be without former world number one Maria Sharapova who is already serving a two-year ban after testing positive for meldonium in January. Russia hails decision Russia hailed an "objective" decision by the IOC Sunday not to ban its entire team from next month's Rio Games over revelations of state-run doping. "It was objective and taken in the interests of world sport and the unity of the Olympic family. We are grateful to the IOC for such a decision," sports minister Vitaly Mutko told R-Sport news agency. He added later in televised comments that he was convinced that the "majority" of the Russian team would meet strict criteria to compete.
