Markéta Vondroušová has been suspended for four years by an independent tribunal after failing to provide a sample during an out-of-competition test attempted at her home on 3 December 2025, at around 8pm. According to the ITIA, the tribunal found “no compelling justification” for the refusal. The suspension will end on 21 June 2030.
The full decision is not yet available: for now, there is only the operative award, while the written reasons will follow “in due course”. That distinction matters, because without the reasons it is impossible to assess properly how the tribunal weighed protocol, the DCO’s identification, mental health and personal safety.
This is not an ordinary “missed test”
The issue of the time slot is real, but in legal terms it is not enough on its own to close the case, because failing to be present for a test and refusing one are two different things. The 2025 TADP distinguishes between two violations. Article 2.4 concerns whereabouts failures: three are needed within twelve months, between missed tests and filing failures, for a player in the Registered Testing Pool, before they become a violation, and the maximum sanction is two years, reducible to one depending on the degree of fault. Article 2.3, by contrast, concerns evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection without “compelling justification” after notification by a duly authorised person, and a single refusal is enough on its own to carry four years. In other words, refusing once weighs more heavily than missing three tests.
Vondroušová did not simply fail to be present: she refused the test; according to the ITIA’s public account, she would also have signed the refusal form. That is why she was suspended under Article 2.3 and not for three whereabouts failures. The difference is substantial: the daily 60-minute window mainly serves to establish when an athlete guarantees availability and when an absence may become a “missed test”. The TADP, however, also provides that players must submit to testing “at any time or place” on request from the ITIA or another organisation with testing authority, and allows the ITIA to select any player for out-of-competition testing, leaving the timing to its discretion. It follows that, if the test took place outside the hour listed in ADAMS, that may be an element of context or defence, but it does not automatically amount to a valid excuse for refusing the test.
Why four years
The 2025 TADP provides that, for a first Article 2.3 violation, the sanction is four years, subject to exceptions. The main ones are: two years if, in a failure to submit case, the player proves that the violation was not intentional; a reduction between two and four years where there are exceptional circumstances; and no suspension if No Fault or Negligence is established.
This explains the severity of the measure. In anti-doping logic, refusal is treated as extremely serious because otherwise an athlete with something to hide could refuse the test and risk less than they would risk after a positive test. That is also the explanation given publicly by the ITIA. It should be made clear, however, that giving refusal the same sanctioning starting point as a positive test does not mean it is factually equivalent to a positive test: from the sources currently available, there is no indication that any substance was found in Vondroušová’s body, but rather a procedural violation treated as extremely serious by the rules.
The defence
The operative award shows that the player contested the charge on two grounds. On the one hand, she argued that she had not been properly notified, because the doping control officer had allegedly failed to comply with the mandatory requirements for identification and authorisation. On the other, she claimed a “compelling justification” linked to the fact that she suffered from Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Acute Stress Reaction, conditions which, according to the defence, had impaired her cognitive capacity and executive functions, making the test “mentally and morally impossible”.
The tribunal, however, found that the test had been notified by a duly authorised person and that there was no compelling justification. The crux of any appeal lies precisely there: how regular was the DCO’s conduct and, assuming the test was legitimate, how much weight should have been given to anxiety, acute stress, perception of danger and personal circumstances. Without the full reasons, those questions cannot be answered with certainty.
The player’s public version
As early as December 2025, Vondroušová had publicly complained that an anti-doping officer had arrived at 8.15pm, outside the window set in ADAMS, requesting an immediate test. In her account, she described a serious intrusion into her privacy and called for the rules to be respected by those who enforce them as well.
In April 2026 she added that she had experienced a fear reaction, describing months of physical and mental stress, sleep problems, threats she had received and concern also linked to the previous attack suffered at home by Petra Kvitová. Around the same time, the ITIA confirmed the investigation and the charge for refusing a test.
After the suspension, the player reiterated that she had never had a positive test and noted that a test taken three days after the incident of 3 December had come back negative. That is relevant narratively and potentially defensively, but it does not in itself erase Article 2.3, because the alleged violation does not depend on the positivity of the later test.
The most delicate point
In terms of privacy, safety and proportionality, the case is potentially uncomfortable for the ITIA, especially given that it involved a female player alone at home in the evening. In technical and regulatory terms, however, the agency’s position is solid: tests may take place outside the designated hour, and the ADAMS window is not a protected zone within which the athlete may refuse.
The problem, then, is not whether she could be tested outside the window, where the regulatory answer appears to be yes. It is rather twofold: whether the notification process was regular and whether the personal circumstances could amount to a compelling justification, or at least exceptional circumstances capable of reducing the sanction. The tribunal answered no, but for now that is known only from the operative award. The real analysis will be possible only once the written reasons are released.
Possible appeal
The ITIA, the player and the national anti-doping organisation have the right to appeal to CAS. The lawyer Jan Exner has said that he will assess the written reasons before deciding on next steps. The appeal route, if there is one, will probably run through the validity of the notification, the DCO’s identification, the interpretation of “compelling justification”, the clinical weight of anxiety and acute stress reaction, and the proportionality of the sanction, with a possible reduction below four years.
The comparison with Sinner
The immediate comparison, three months for him, under an agreement with WADA after the first-instance decision that had recognised No Fault or Negligence and imposed no period of ineligibility, four years for her, is what fuels much of the outrage. But the point is not to establish who was more innocent: both situations are objectively strange. And Sinner’s, when told aloud, sounds almost worse. An athletic trainer buys an over-the-counter product from a pharmacy, Trofodermin, which contains the banned anabolic steroid clostebol; the physiotherapist uses it for days on a cut of his own while continuing to massage the player and bandage his feet; and that is how two samples taken in March 2024 test positive. Applying strict liability to the letter, whereby the athlete is ultimately responsible for what ends up in his body, a case of that kind would normally close with a heavy suspension, and that is exactly what WADA had sought: between one and two years.
The difference is that the case was handled impeccably. Sinner’s team identified the source of the contamination immediately and obtained the lifting of the provisional suspensions through urgent applications; it built a scientific defence with three independent experts who made the explanation plausible, leading to the recognition of “No Fault or Negligence”; and in the end it reached a three-month agreement with WADA calibrated in such a way that he did not miss a single Slam.
Vondroušová’s case, on paper more human and more defensible, a woman alone at home in the evening, perhaps frightened, was handled terribly: she refused the test in the moment and built her defence only afterwards, on clinical and procedural grounds, before a tribunal that nonetheless found the refusal lacked any compelling justification. The real dividing line, then, is not who had the cleaner story, but who managed the anti-doping process better: in one case, an almost embarrassing reconstruction turned into three months without missing a Slam; in the other, a potentially more understandable situation ended in four years.
As things stand, the suspension can be explained under the rules, but it cannot yet be fully assessed. The ITIA has on its side a very harsh and fairly clear rule: the athlete can be tested outside the window, and refusal constitutes a serious violation. Vondroušová has on her side a human and potentially procedural argument: an evening test at home, personal safety, contested identification and certified psychological conditions. The decisive point will be in the full reasons. If the tribunal dealt with those factors weakly, the case may become highly vulnerable on appeal; if, however, it properly documented notification, the DCO’s conduct and the player’s awareness of the refusal, the suspension will be much harder to overturn.
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