The former ATP prosecutor-in-chief strongly defended its part in the Andre Agassi crystal meth affair yesterday as the governing body came under fire from past and present members for letting the shamed champion get away with pulling the wool over its eyes so blatantly.

Agassi himself remains a target for criticism with Boris Becker claiming that the drug-taking confession has stained Agassi’s reputation.

“This is terrible news for him and tennis, I don’t know where he got the motivation to say what he has said,” Becker said. “Even in my dangerous years, I was never interested in drugs, not at 17, not at 20 and not now at almost 42. I admitted to sleeping pills, but that was as far as it ever went.”

Becker said that Agassi’s admission left “big question marks” about the American’s career. But the tennis authorities have also been left with difficult questions to answer after Agassi’s revelation that he escaped sanctions by lying that he had inadvertently ingested a spiked drink in 1997 when, in fact, he had snorted the drug.

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Richard Ings was the ATP’s executive vice-president of rules and regulations from 2000 to 2005 and was responsible for leading the prosecution of several doping cases, including the affair involving Greg Rusedski when the former British No 1 was charged after he had tested positive for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, but was cleared by an independent tribunal.

Ings, now chief executive of Australia’s Sports Anti-Doping Authority, has been startled at the fallout from the revelations from Agassi’s autobiography — serialised in The Times — but defended the sport’s anti-doping record.

“The ATP did exactly what was required of it 12 years ago, just as the ITF did what was right in the case of Richard Gasquet earlier this year,” Ings said. “In both cases, the tribunal found for the athlete. It does happen.”

Ings insisted that the ATP player council — whose president is Roger Federer, the world No 1 — is well aware of and fully supports the statute that the identity of any member declared innocent of a doping offence is never released. Which is why he was astonished to read that a number of players — including Rafael Nadal, Spain’s former world No 1 — have suggested that the ATP may have “covered” for Agassi.

Until 2007, when the responsibility for the tennis anti-doping programme was handed over to the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the ATP was in the invidious position of representing the interests of its members and prosecuting anyone charged with infringing any of its rules.

“There is an incredibly high burden of proof required to achieve a successful case and in the vast majority of these, the sport’s position was upheld but there were times when the tribunal found for the athlete.”

Ings revealed that he has had discussions with John Fahey, the president the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), who said on Wednesday that the ATP should “shed some light” on the part it played in the affair. “John knows that only if the ATP was ever released from the conditions of confidentiality in these situations, could they do anything differently,” Ings said.

Could the Agassi revelations have an impact on the case of Gasquet, the most startling of its kind in 2009? The Frenchman was cleared by a tribunal four months ago after testifying to its satisfaction that traces of cocaine found in his urine in March entered his system after he had French-kissed a woman referred to only as “Pamela” in a nightclub. The amount of cocaine involved was roughly equal to a single grain of refined salt.

The ITF and Wada jointly appealed the tribunal’s findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the hearing is to take place in the middle of next month. If CAS was to overturn the tribunal’s findings — which exonerated Gasquet on the basis they found “no fault or negligence on his part” — the 23-year-old faces the prospect of a year’s suspension.