AFP - The International Tennis Federation (ITF) on Thursday announced they will appeal against the decision which lifted a doping ban on France's Richard Gasquet.
  
The 23-year-old Frenchman tested positive for cocaine during the Miami Masters in March, but an independent tribunal allowed him to resume his career in July.
  
Gasquet, a former top 10 player and a Wimbledon semi-finalist, had been provisionally suspended in May before serving a two and a half month retroactive ban.
  
The ITF will take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
  
"The ITF can confirm that, jointly with WADA (the world anti-doping egency), it has appealed to CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) the decision of the Independent Tribunal in the case of Richard Gasquet," said a statement released by the the ITF.
  
"The ITF will make no further comment at this time."
  
Gasquet had claimed that he had picked up traces of cocaine after kissing a girl in a Miami nightclub.
  
The ITF had said Gasquet's sample from the ATP event in Miami contained benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine banned in-competition under WADA's 2009 List of Prohibited Substance.
  
But the ITF tribunal accepted his plea of 'no significant fault or negligence', the player having insisted that the cocaine entered his system through inadvertent contamination in a nightclub.