FanHouse Richard Gasquet

To think, Richard Gasquet was making all the preposterous stories and excuses believable: Your dog did eat your homework. There really is an alligator in the sewer. You really could get some ugly diseases from public toilets. (I might believe that one.)

Gasquet was the tennis player who had failed a cocaine test, and then won the appeal, saying he would never, ever use cocaine, and that he must have ingested it by kissing a user he met at the bar known for drug use. He gave the woman the name "Pamela" to protect her identity.

AND THEY LET HIM GO!

LONDON (AP) -- Richard Gasquet escaped a lengthy doping ban Wednesday when the International Tennis Federation ruled that he inadvertently took cocaine.

The 23-year-old Frenchman, who was cleared to resume playing after completing a 2 1/2-month ban Wednesday, convinced an independent anti-doping tribunal that he ingested cocaine by kissing a woman he met at a nightclub in Miami.

The tribunal panel of three lawyers said Gasquet consumed no more than "a grain of salt" of the drug, and a long ban would be an injustice in a case which was "unusual to the point of being probably unique."

PARIS (AP) -- French tennis player Richard Gasquet has acknowledged he's been told he tested positive for cocaine but says he's innocent.

"I am gathering together proof of my innocence and I will choose an appropriate moment to express myself," Gasquet said in a statement Sunday.

Gasquet said the "B" sample from the tournament in Key Biscayne, Fla., confirmed the result of the "A" sample taken the same day.

The Web site of sports daily L'Equipe reported Saturday that traces of the banned drug were found in the 22-year-old Gasquet's urine sample at the Sony Ericsson Open, where he pulled out after the first round.