Mariano Puerta

He is an Argentine former professional tennis player. He reached a career-high ATP world No. 9 singles ranking in August 2005. His career highlight of reaching the final of the French Open in 2005 was marred by testing positive for the banned substance etilefrine in a drugs test directly after the French Open final, for which he received an eight-year doping ban.

Puerta made his debut on the ATP Tour in 1997, and turned professional in 1998. He won his first ATP title in 1998 in Palermo, Italy. In 2000, Puerta achieved his highest year-end ranking of World No. 21, reaching five finals, and winning one of them (Bogotá). That same year, however, he underwent wrist surgery, which kept him off the tour for several months.

Besides from not recovering his previous playing level, he was suspended from tennis for 9 months from October 2003 onwards for a doping offense (see section on doping controversies). Owing to the suspension he missed most of the 2004 season, and by August 2004 his world ranking had dropped to No. 440. He was reduced to playing Challenger-level tournaments for a while until he had earned enough points to return to the ATP Tour.

In 2005, Puerta made an eye-opening comeback on the Tour by winning the title in Casablanca and then making it to the final of the world's most prestigious clay court tournament, the French Open, where he eventually succumbed to Rafael Nadal in a close match (7–6(6), 3–6, 1–6, 5–7). By August 2005 he had climbed to a career-best World No. 9 in the ATP singles rankings, an advancement of 431 places in one year.

In December 2005, he was, again, suspended for a doping offense, this time for 8 years, effectively ending his professional career. This suspension was later reduced on appeal.

On June 6, 2007, Puerta returned to the professional circuit with a 6–4, 6–3 victory over Australian Joseph Sirianni at the Sassuolo Challenger, a tournament to which he was invited as a wild card since he had no ranking. In the second round, Puerta lost 6–3, 6–0 to Spaniard Marc López. Since returning to the tour, Puerta has only played on the ATP Challenger Tour, including winning the Bogotá Challenger in 2008 and reaching the final of the San Luis Potosí Challenger in 2008 without dropping a set, where he was forced to default the final, and the Cordenons challenger in 2007.

Puerta is left-handed and uses a single-handed backhand. He is an excellent clay-court specialist with a game that revolves around very accurate and powerful groundstrokes off both wings with heavy topspin. His main weaknesses are his mental strength, slow court speed and comparatively weak serve, the latter two which significantly prevents his success on fast surfaces. He is also very capable at the net, having good volleys and quick reflexes despite his slow court speed.