{"id":26952,"date":"2026-06-29T03:42:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/26952\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T03:42:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:42:32","slug":"serena-williams-criticises-tennis-anti-doping-protocol-ahead-of-wimbledon-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/26952\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams criticises tennis anti-doping protocol ahead of Wimbledon return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis legend Serena Williams took aim at the game’s anti-doping protocol ahead of her Wimbledon return, claiming the system is “unprofessional” and “unreasonable”.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old, who is a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion, returned to the testing pool before she could announce her comeback to professional tennis.<\/p>\n

“It’s gruelling. They changed the rules now,” Williams told a pre-Wimbledon media conference.<\/p>\n

Ex-Wimbledon champ banned<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark\u00e9ta Vondrou\u0161ov\u00e1, who lifted the Wimbledon trophy in 2023, is given a “significant ban” by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know some of the rules. So apparently if you miss a test outside of your window, it still counts as missed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m like, ‘I guess I can’t go pick up my kids’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s unprofessional. I hate it. I think it’s necessary, but I think a lot of the stuff, if I want to go places outside of my window, I should be able to go without having it count as a missed test.”<\/p>\n

Williams’s first Wimbledon match since 2022 takes place on Wednesday morning AEST when she faces Australia’s Maya Joint.<\/p>\n

She returned to professional tennis earlier this month in a doubles match at the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The anti-doping protocol was in the spotlight last week when Mark\u00e9ta Vondrou\u0161ov\u00e1, the 2023 Wimbledon champion, was suspended for four years for refusing a test<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Players are required by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to provide their daily “whereabouts” for no-notice testing.<\/p>\n

\"Serena<\/p>\n

Serena Williams returned to the WTA Tour at Queen’s earlier this month. (Getty Images: Paul Harding)<\/p>\n

Williams described the measure as “unreasonable”.<\/p>\n

“That was a big reason why I didn’t want to come back,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Because it’s just so hard. I mean, my life is busy, I run a company, I run a VC (venture capital) company, I travel the world. I have children.<\/p>\n

“It’s like I could be in so many different cities so many different times.”<\/p>\n

But the ITIA, in response to Williams’s comments, said the rules had been the same for several years.<\/p>\n

Williams handed Wimbledon wildcard<\/a><\/p>\n

Serena Williams will make a stunning return to singles at this year’s Wimbledon after accepting the final wildcard berth by the All England Club.<\/p>\n

“If a tester is unable to reach a player during their allocated hour, then it may well be a ‘strike,’ and three failures could lead to a charge,” an ITIA statement read.<\/p>\n

“If a tester is unable to reach a player outside of their allocated hour, it is not considered a strike.”<\/p>\n

In 2023, Jenson Brooksby was given an 18-month suspension after an independent tribunal determined he missed three drug tests within the span of a year.<\/p>\n

Under anti-doping rules, athletes can be penalised without a positive test if they have three “whereabouts failures” within 12 months.<\/p>\n

“There have been no changes to the whereabouts rules in the last few years,” the ITIA added in its statement.<\/p>\n

“We understand the system can seem challenging, but it is there to protect players, not to trip them up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If players are unsure or have questions, we would welcome a conversation with them directly or through their agents.”<\/p>\n

Williams, who has previously criticised the frequency of anti-doping testing, said she was willing to comply.<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Serena Williams took aim at the game’s anti-doping protocol ahead of her Wimbledon return, claiming the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4642,4355,9008,10226,366,2149,5230,408,122,3386,28,10227,285],"class_list":["post-26952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-anti-doping","tag-comeback","tag-doping","tag-drugs","tag-grand-slam","tag-major","tag-marketa-vondrousova","tag-maya-joint","tag-serena-williams","tag-singles","tag-tennis","tag-test","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}