By Shrivathsa Sridhar; Reuters.
Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against her four-year ban for missing a doping test last year, the sport’s highest judicial body said.
Vondrousova was issued the suspension in June after the International Tennis Integrity Agency said the Czech did not submit her sample when notified by a doping control officer in an out-of-competition test attempt at her home in December.
The 27-year-old said in April she had “reached a breaking point after months of physical and mental stress” and added that an officer arriving at 8:15 p.m. demanding an immediate test felt like a serious intrusion into her privacy.
Vondrousova has said she never doped, and a test taken three days after the December 3 incident came back negative.
CAS on Tuesday confirmed the receipt of the appeal and said a hearing had not yet been scheduled. Vondrousova’s ban ends on June 21, 2030, when she will be 30.
The former world number six has not played since skipping the Adelaide International in January due to a shoulder injury and has dropped to world number 153.
She won the 2023 Wimbledon title, having previously made the French Open final in 2019 and bagged a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.