Tennis News round-upDetails of Martina Hingis's positive dope test at Wimbledon this year might never be revealed if an anti-doping tribunal rules in her favour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said yesterday.

On Thursday the former world number one announced her retirement from professional tennis after saying she had tested positive for cocaine, though she emphatically denied ever taking the drug.

The London-based ITF is in charge of administering dope tests in tennis and a spokesman explained yesterday the organisation's rules prohibited comment on or publication of a positive test until any subsequent appeals had run their course.

Unlike in athletics, where officials release a name as soon A and B samples have been analysed even if the athlete maintains innocence, the ITF publishes details only after a player has been to an anti-doping tribunal and lost the case.

If the tribunal finds in the player's favour, details of the positive tests are never revealed.

Hingis jumped the gun on that process on Thursday after she said her lawyers advised her the fight to prove her innocence could go on for years.

In a statement the five-times grand slam champion from Switzerland said: "I have no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials. I am frustrated and angry."

Hingis said she found the accusation "so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press".

The 27-year-old, who retired from competition in 2002 but made a comeback in 2006 and climbed to sixth in the world rankings, said her legal representative had discovered various inconsistencies with the urine sample taken during Wimbledon and felt doping officials mishandled the process.

The Hingis case has parallels with that in 2004 of the former British number one Greg Rusedski, who also chose to announce he had failed a test, in that instance for nandrolone, and was later cleared by a tribunal.