Ex-France minister has to pay damages to Nadal

PARIS — Former French minister for health and sport Roselyne Bachelot was ordered to pay 10,000 euros ($11,800) in damages to Rafael Nadal on Thursday 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.

The Spanish player said he will donate the money to a non-governmental organization or a foundation in France.

“When I filed the lawsuit against Mrs. Bachelot, I intended not only to defend my integrity and my image as an athlete but also the values I have defended all my career,” Nadal said in a statement.

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Nadal said he wanted to keep public figures “from making insulting or false allegations against an athlete … without any evidence or foundation and to go unpunished.”

He said the lawsuit was never motivated by money.

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, he 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.”

The Associated Press