Marketa Vondrousova Appeals Four-Year Doping Ban to CAS

Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has appealed her four-year doping suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the international body confirmed on Monday. The Czech player was sanctioned by the International Tennis Integrity Agency after refusing to take an out-of-competition doping test in December 2025.

A CAS spokeswoman confirmed that an appeal had been lodged. No hearing date has been set, with proceedings normally taking place in the months after an appeal is filed. The hearing would be held behind closed doors unless Vondrousova requests a public hearing, which is rare, and a final ruling would follow several months later.

The appeal is the next major step in a case that has kept Vondrousova off the WTA Tour since January. Her suspension is currently due to run until June 21, 2030, while her ranking has fallen from inside the world’s top 50 to No. 153 during her absence.

Why Vondrousova was suspended

The ITIA said Vondrousova failed to open the door to an anti-doping officer who arrived to conduct an out-of-competition test. Tennis players are required to provide whereabouts information for a designated hour each day, allowing anti-doping authorities to carry out testing outside tournaments.

Vondrousova said after the sanction that she had “never doped.” In April, she said she had been frightened when the officer rang her bell without, in her view, properly identifying themselves or following protocol. She linked that reaction in part to the 2016 knife attack on her compatriot and fellow former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova at Kvitova’s home.

“In that moment, fear clouded my judgement and I just couldn’t process the situation rationally,” Vondrousova said at the time. “After what happened to Petra, we don’t take strangers at our door lightly.”

However, an independent tribunal ruled last month that Vondrousova had offered “no compelling justification” for refusing the test. The tribunal noted that she took her dog for a walk 10 minutes later, and described the decision as one made in a moment of stress and anxiety but with significant consequences.

What the CAS appeal means

The CAS process gives Vondrousova an opportunity to challenge the four-year sanction imposed in the case. The court has confirmed only that the appeal exists; it has not announced a hearing date or indicated when a decision could be delivered.

The case has also drawn discussion over sanctions in other recent tennis anti-doping cases. American world No. 3 Jessica Pegula described Vondrousova’s punishment as “harsh” at Wimbledon in June, comparing it with shorter bans received by Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek.

Sinner accepted a three-month ban after reaching an agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2024. He had tested positive for clostebol before an independent tribunal found he was not at fault. Swiatek served a one-month ban in 2024 after testing positive for a banned substance.

Vondrousova, 27, won the Wimbledon singles title in 2023 and reached a career-high ranking of No. 6 two months later. She also reached the 2019 French Open final and won singles silver at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Her CAS appeal will determine whether the ban running to 2030 remains in place or is altered.