‘Some **** from doping is here’: How expletive-ridden text messages and a dog walk led to former Wimbledon champion landing a FOUR-YEAR drugs ban

Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova referred to a doping control officer (DCO) as a ‘****’ and took her dog for a walk after refusing a drugs test which led to a four-year ban from tennis, the tribunal’s full written decision on the case has revealed. 

Shockwaves were sent through the sport in late June when the 2023 champion was handed the jaw-dropping sanction for barring the DCO from administering a test at her home in Prague at 8pm in December 2025. 

Vondrousova claimed that she had been concerned for her safety and suffered ‘an acute stress reaction’ which had hampered her decision-making, prompting her to sign a document offered by the DCO confirming her refusal. 

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) stressed in their decision to sanction the Czech star to the fullest extent came from wanting to ensure the length of a ban refusing a test is the same as testing positive. 

‘This is to ensure that anyone who is doping cannot serve a shorter ban simply by refusing to be tested,’ The ITIA’s initial statement confirmed. 

The release of Friday’s written decisions in full has revealed that the extent to which Vondrousova was deemed to have deliberately refused the test by the independent tribunal. 

‘This is a very unfortunate manner in which the player made a decision in the heat of the moment to refuse doping control, in a state of stress and anxiety, with significant consequences,’ the tribunal said on Friday, adding that she had not offered ‘compelling justification’ for refusing the test. 

The 26-year-old’s defence was threefold: that she had felt unsafe by the arrival of a DCO outside of her dedicated testing window; that the DCO had not followed procedure and had not identified herself to Vondrousova, adding to the threat she felt; and that her decision-making had been impaired by her anxiety and the ‘acute stress reaction’ which overcame her. 

But findings from Vondrousova’s WhatsApp messages showed that she had been quick to understand that the DCO was here to test her outside of her requested window when the officer first rang her doorbell and announced herself. 

‘So like here is ringing some **** from the doping,’ Vondrousova messaged her boyfriend, fellow Czech player Andrew Paulson, after first refusing the DCO entry to her apartment, and speaking on the phone to her agent Enric Molina. 

Vondrousova and the DCO gave differing accounts as to what happened next, with the former suggesting that they had one more exchange via intercom, and the latter two. 

10 minutes after their conversation, Vondrousova left her building to find the DCO still waiting to administer the test as she took her Italian greyhound for a walk. 

Vondrousova was then prompted a final time by the DCO that her refusal to take a test would have serious consequences, and signed a form which confirmed her decision before continuing on her dog walk. 

‘She left,’ Vondrousova messaged Molina, before sending him a picture of her completed form. ‘(T)his is completely f***ed up.’ She later posted a statement about the incident, including a picture of the DCO and tagging the ITIA and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on her Instagram Story. 

Both Vondrousova and Molina claimed to have no knowledge that players could be tested outside of their specified window. 

All players in the ITIA testing pool must share a time and location where they are available for testing every day, updating it as necessary, with Vondrousova’s scheduled for the morning. 

But the organisation consistently stressed that out-of-competition and out-of-hours testing is imperative to ensure clean sport, with the ITIA regularly sharing information on their ‘any time, any place’ guidelines – which was cited during the tribunal.  

Molina had spoken to the organisation that evening at around 9pm, sharing that he had never had a client tested outside of their window and querying whether it was a ‘new’ initiative. 

The ITIA argued that Vondrousova, who has taken 83 tests over the last eight years, could not ‘credibly’ say that she was not aware of the rules.  

After the incident, Vondrousova briefly shared her first account of refusing the test on her Instagram Story

While Vondrousova was deemed to have been aware that she was dealing with a DCO despite her claim that she had not identified her properly, allegations that she had been unsafe were also unpicked. 

Vondrousova had cited the horrifying 2016 incident which saw her compatriot Petra Kvitova stabbed after a man pretending to be boiler repairman assaulted her at her home in Prostejov as her reasoning for why she had felt unsafe. 

But despite Vondrousova’s argument that her apartment was in an area of Prague with high crime rates, the tribunal disagreed, citing that the city was consistently ranked one of the safest in Europe. 

Vondrousova had simultaneously admitted that she lived in a ‘nice area’, and the tribunal found her to have ‘exaggerated’ similarities to Kvitova’s ordeal. 

The tribunal also saw her account of feeling unsafe as being at odds with her decision to take her dog for a walk and come face-to-face with the DCO, with Vondrousova describing the small dog as ‘not much of a scary dog’. 

The player’s claim that her ‘acute stress reaction’ had hampered her decision-making also faltered as neither of the two doctors who had given evidence on Vondrousova’s mental wellbeing made themselves available for cross examination. 

The ITIA admitted to understanding that the situation would cause some anxiety, but rejected that she had not been able to maintain a high level of cognitive function throughout the incident. 

The organisation’s own expert added that ‘the retrospective nature of the diagnoses made by the experts which the Player relied upon (and their lack of any contemporaneous evidence to support them) presented inherent clinical risks which needed to be treated with caution’.   

Vondrousova has the right to appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but her sanction began on 22 June of this year, and if served in totality, will see her return to the WTA tour at the age of 30.