Every once in a while when we come to sigh and lament ongoing defeat in the doping wars, somebody throws around the truism that the dopers are always a few steps ahead of the testers. One of the problems closing this gap is that it's generally impossible to put a measurement on the distance. If nothing else, then, we can thank Maria Sharapova for one thing. On meldonium, we now know that the doping circle of the sports world had a 10-year jump on the authorities.

Even the most benign view of her performance on Monday night is still damning for the five-time major winner. For a decade, she took a drug designed primarily to treat a medical condition she did not have, a drug unlicensed in the country where she has lived since she was seven years old, a drug whose side effects include an ability to train longer and recover quicker.

Significant lengths

Meldonium is a performance enhancing drug. It was when it was legal, it is now that it’s on the banned list. Sharapova took it for a decade despite its normal course of use being four-to-six weeks. She continued to take it without mentioning either it, or the ailment for which it was prescribed, until after she was caught.

And she presumably went to significant lengths to source it, seeing as she couldn’t get it in America. It defies credibility that she did all of this without knowing she was doping. Banned list or no banned list, this was doping.

As always, the most interesting thing to watch out for in these cases is not the noise that accompanies them but the silence. Sharapova won five grand slam titles in her career, beating Serena Williams, Justine Henin, Ana Ivanovic, Sara Errani and Simona Halep in the finals. More than anyone, those are five women who have the right – the obligation, arguably – to at least ask questions about Sharapova’s revelation.

And yet.

Williams: “I think most people were happy she was upfront and very honest and showed a lot of courage to admit to what she had done and what she had neglected to look at in terms of the list at the end of the year. As Maria said, she’s ready to take full responsibility. She showed a lot of courage and a lot of heart. I think she’s always shown courage and heart in everything she’s done, and this is no different.”

Henin: “Well, I think it’s not nice what’s happening. I think we’re all a little bit sad and disappointed about the situation. It’s never good for the game. It’s never good for anyone, for the fans, for all the people that support the game and the sport. It’s probably not good for Maria at the moment.”

Ivanovic: “ . . .”

Errani: “. . .”

Halep: “ . . .”

Contrast all that obfuscation and all that silence with the very reasonable nutshelling of the situation by Pat Cash on Tuesday night.

“Okay, mistake, incompetency on her part in not checking what the rules are – that can happen. It shouldn’t have but it did happen. The bottom line is, one of the issues is that she’s been taking a performance-enhancing drug for the last 10 years. And it’s supposed to be for a medical condition. This medical condition has lasted for 10 years? It’s got something to do with diabetes? It’s got something to do with a heart issue? I don’t know, I’m just finding that a little bit hard to swallow.”

Why isn’t all of tennis finding it hard to swallow? Why aren’t players who have been beaten by Sharapova in the past coming out and saying they feel cheated? Do they feel cheated? Or is this kind of thing – finding pharmaceutical edges, stretching the ethical elastic just short of snapping point – just a part of life on tour?

Benign interpretation

When a sport doesn’t stand up for itself in the face of obvious doping, we can only surmise where it lies on its list of priorities. Since Monday, a lot has been made of Sharapova not reading the email informing her that meldonium had gone on Wada’s banned list. It has emerged that she was informed of its reclassification five times. Again, the most benign interpretation of this says nothing good about the situation.

If she is telling the truth and neither she nor the people who open her emails thought it was important to read a message about the banned list being updated, then it tells you something about the level of worry the top tennis players have about failing a drugs test. If she is lying and saw the emails and decided to keep taking meldonium anyway, then it tells you pretty much the same thing.

The dopers are ahead of the testers. And we can believe nothing that we see.