Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has been handed a four-year ban from tennis after refusing to submit to a doping test in December 2025. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) stated the lengthy sanction was intended to ensure that refusing a test carries the same penalty as testing positive.
The incident occurred at Vondrousova's home in Prague. The 26-year-old player claimed she experienced an 'acute stress reaction' and felt unsafe due to the doping control officer's (DCO) arrival outside her scheduled testing window. She also alleged the DCO did not identify herself properly, contributing to her apprehension.
However, an independent tribunal found that Vondrousova's defense lacked compelling justification. Text messages exchanged with her boyfriend revealed she quickly understood the DCO's purpose upon arrival. Despite her claims of feeling unsafe, Vondrousova later took her dog for a walk and encountered the DCO again, at which point she signed a form confirming her refusal to be tested.
The tribunal found Vondrousova's comparison of the situation to the 2016 home invasion of fellow Czech player Petra Kvitova to be exaggerated. They noted Prague is consistently ranked as one of Europe's safest cities and that Vondrousova herself described her dog as "not much of a scary dog." Furthermore, her claim that her decision-making was impaired by stress was not supported by independent medical evidence presented for cross-examination.
The ITIA maintained that players in their testing pool are regularly informed about the possibility of out-of-competition and out-of-hours testing, emphasizing an 'any time, any place' policy. Vondrousova, who had undergone 83 tests in the previous eight years, could not credibly claim ignorance of these rules, the agency argued.
Vondrousova has the right to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Her ban began on June 22, and if fully served, she would be eligible to return to the WTA tour at age 30.