{"id":28794,"date":"2026-06-30T22:51:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/28794\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:51:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:51:17","slug":"wimbledon-anti-doping-system-in-spotlight-as-players-raise-protocol-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/28794\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon: Anti-doping system in spotlight as players raise protocol concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Coco Gauff said she was brought to tears by a \u201cpushy\u201d anti-doping tester. Serena Williams called the system \u201c grueling<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protocols designed to protect tennis from doping are in the spotlight as players open up about their experiences navigating the system in the aftermath of a four-year ban handed to 2023 Wimbledon<\/a> champion Marketa Vondrousova \u2014 not for testing positive but for refusing to take a test<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Players are required to provide a 60-minute time slot each day to be available for testing, plus the International Tennis Integrity Agency says that if a doping control officer \u201clocates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, there\u2019s a need for communication between players and testers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie, some of them can be pushy, make you feel like you\u2019re doing something wrong,\u201d Gauff, the No. 7 seed, said after her first-round victory at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time she came outside my time slot. But the way she was speaking to me on the phone, it literally made me cry afterwards,\u201d the 22-year-old American said. \u201cI found out I was in the right, and I didn\u2019t have to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of her first-round match Tuesday, Ajla Tomljanovic<\/a> described her close calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very scared of the system because it feels broken,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve had a few experiences of my own where it was about technicalities and when I speak to people in charge they\u2019re not helpful \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say they don\u2019t care \u2014 but they weren\u2019t very helpful at all to explain things or just show some sort of compassion when I was nowhere near missing a test or testing positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian player said she was seeking help about how the app works.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was new to the whole system. And I was at two fails for a month and I knew if I get a third one accidentally I would be out for at least two, three years,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s in a way, I won\u2019t say no fault of my own but it\u2019s not to the degree of being banned and smearing your name. In that sense, I think there\u2019s so much to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, who makes her Wimbledon return on Tuesday<\/a>, said the testing system was \u201ca big reason why I didn\u2019t want to come back either, because it\u2019s just so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vondrousova case<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Czech player, who became Wimbledon\u2019s first unseeded female champion when she beat Ons Jabeur in the 2023 final, refused to take a test in early December 2025 after a doping control officer rang her apartment\u2019s intercom at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

This month, following a hearing by an independent tribunal, Vondrousova received the maximum four-year ban for a first offense.<\/p>\n

ITIA published a video explainer<\/a> of the case, saying Vondrousova on the night in question challenged the timing of the test because it was outside her designated time slot.<\/p>\n

The agency noted: \u201cIf a Doping Control Officer, or DCO, locates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vondrousova had described the tester as \u201caggressive\u201d and said the frequent ringing of the intercom \u201ctriggered a state of distress,\u201d the ITIA video says.<\/p>\n

The tribunal\u2019s June 22 decision confirmed that Vondrousova refused the test and that the evidence \u201cprovided no compelling justification for doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ITIA added that under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, \u201ctest refusals can be sanctioned as severely as positive tests.\u201d One rationale is an athlete who is doping could simply refuse a test and seek a lighter punishment.<\/p>\n

Last year, the ITIA said it conducted over 8,000 tests both in and out of competition \u201cand received a handful of complaints. We take all feedback on board and encourage players to share their views with us.\u201d Other organizations, such as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, also conduct player testing.<\/p>\n

On possible changes to the system, the ITIA noted that tennis follows WADA rules and processes, which \u201cwill be refreshed in 2027. As part of this process, WADA consults with athletes from across global sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the system can seem challenging,\u201d the ITIA said, \u201cbut it is there to protect players, not to trip them up. If players are ever unsure about a test, have questions, or would like to provide feedback on their experience, we want to hear about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some players say a 4-year ban is harsh<\/p>\n

Jessica Pegula, the No. 4 seed, said she didn\u2019t know the full details of Vondrousova\u2019s case but that \u201cI feel, like, for Marketa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor something like that, for four years, you\u2019re ruining someone\u2019s career over something that could have really just been a complete misunderstanding, and I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s fair. I think the sentencing is so harsh,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t quite understand the difference between that and then obviously what happened with (Jannik) Sinner and Iga (Swiatek),\u201d she said. \u201cThey justified what the rules were and why it was the way it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top-ranked Sinner<\/a>, the defending men\u2019s champion at Wimbledon, accepted a three-month ban<\/a> in a settlement with WADA in early 2025 following his two positive doping tests from the prior year. WADA had challenged ITIA\u2019s decision not to suspend Sinner<\/a> for what it judged was accidental contamination \u2014 entering his system through a massage \u2014 by a banned anabolic steroid.<\/p>\n

Swiatek, Wimbledon\u2019s defending women\u2019s champion, accepted a one-month suspension<\/a> in 2024 after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a heart medication. The ITIA accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional and caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues with jet lag.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Coco Gauff said she was brought to tears by a \u201cpushy\u201d anti-doping tester. Serena Williams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1211,185,9008,183,5230,4198,122,50,4084,28,285,1996],"class_list":["post-28794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coco-gauff","tag-ajla-tomljanovic","tag-coco-gauff","tag-doping","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-marketa-vondrousova","tag-ons-jabeur","tag-serena-williams","tag-sports","tag-sports-europe","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon","tag-wimbledon-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28794","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=28794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}