Pressure grew last night on tennis officials to explain their actions after Andre Agassi’s shocking revelations of drug-taking in The Times yesterday.

Agassi told how, in 1997, he had deliberately snorted crystal meth, subsequently failed a drugs test but escaped a ban after falsely telling the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) that he had ingested the drug by accident.

The confession is made in Agassi’s autobiography, Open, which is being exclusively serialised by The Times.

The silence from the tennis authorities that has greeted the revelations has done little to allay fears that other top players may have avoided punishment after failing drug tests.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), has asked the ATP to explain the Agassi case further.

The ATP was in charge of policing the drugs programme in 1997 when Agassi wrote to them saying that he had ingested crystal methamphetamine accidentally by drinking from his assistant’s “spiked soda”. In fact, he had deliberately taken the substance at his Las Vegas home to “get high”.

The ATP accepted his version of events and he escaped any sanction. The positive test was not revealed until Agassi’s dramatic confession yesterday.

John Fahey, the Wada president, said that no retrospective punishment could be taken against the eight-times grand-slam tournament champion because of the agency’s eight-year statute of limitations and because Agassi is retired. “Wada would, however, expect the ATP, which administered its own anti-doping programme at that time, to shed light on this allegation,” Fahey said.

The publication of Agassi’s admission yesterday inspired headlines and incredulity across the sporting world. Mark Miles, the ATP chief executive at the time of Agassi’s subversion 12 years ago, would not be drawn on the specifics of the case.

But it is clear he and others have long been frustrated that independent tribunals appointed to arbitrate in several cases have chosen to come down on the players’ side, giving rise to accusations of weak leadership.

Only two months ago, Richard Gasquet won his appeal after he tested positive for cocaine at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. The Frenchman successfully pleaded that he had been contaminated when he kissed a girl known as “Pamela” in a bar. The tribunal was impressed by Gasquet’s honesty and truthfulness and believed that he was “a man of good character”. The ITF and Wada have appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Did the same happen in Agassi’s case? There were cries of cover-up yesterday and although Miles insisted he could not say anything about any specific case, he rejected a suggestion that the ATP did anything on his watch that was not by the book. “There has never been a time when an ATP executive decided the outcome of any doping case,” he said. “Each one of those that took place in my period of office at the ATP was heard by a properly appointed independent panel.”

When Agassi revealed yesterday that an “ATP doctor” had called him while he was at La Guardia airport in New York to inform him that traces of methamphetamine had been discovered in his urine sample, it could be argued that proper protocol had not been followed.

It is common practice now for a player to be informed first of a positive doping test by letter from the ITF, which now administers the programme, and not by personal contact.

In a posting on an American magazine’s website, Agassi is reported to have said that he “was worried for a moment, but not for long” about how fans would react if they found out he used drugs. “I wore my heart on my sleeve and my emotions were always written on my face,” he said. “I was actually excited about telling the world the whole story.”

Later when talking about the book, Agassi added: “It lives up to the title. It’s my life, for better or worse. Get ready, buckle up, and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.”

Miles, now the chairman of the host committee for the 2012 NFL Super Bowl in Indianapolis, became the ATP chief executive in 1990.

The Times asked the present ATP regime yesterday how many cases there have been since 1997 of players who tested positive for a prohibited substance and who had been charged with a doping offence who were subsequently exonerated by an independent tribunal. There was no response.