British tennis player Tara Moore, formerly ranked No 1 in doubles in the UK, has been handed a four-year doping ban after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) upheld an appeal by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA). The 32-year-old was initially cleared of an anti-doping rule violation in 2022, but Cas overturned that decision.
Moore was provisionally suspended in June 2022 after a blood sample tested positive for the anabolic steroids nandrolone and boldenone. She maintained she had never knowingly taken a banned substance, and an independent tribunal initially ruled that contaminated meat was the source. However, Cas determined that Moore failed to prove the contamination claim and that the violation was not intentional.
In a statement, Cas said: “After reviewing the scientific and legal evidence, the majority of the Cas panel considered that the player did not succeed in proving that the concentration of nandrolone in her sample was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat.” The panel concluded Moore failed to establish that the anti-doping rule violation was not intentional.
Moore had earlier described losing 19 months of her career during the initial suspension, saying her “reputation, ranking and livelihood was slowly trickling away.” She also filed a cross-appeal, which was declared inadmissible. The four-year ban begins from Tuesday, with credit for time already served under provisional suspension.
ITIA chief executive Karen Moorhouse said: “Our bar for appealing a first-instance decision is high, and the decision is not taken lightly. In this case, our independent scientific advice was that the player did not adequately explain the high level of nandrolone present in their sample. Today’s ruling is consistent with this position.”
Moore, currently ranked 187th in doubles and 864th in singles, has competed on the ITF World Tennis and WTA 125 tours. She was a Billie Jean King Cup team member and briefly became Britain’s top-ranked doubles player in February 2022. She also played doubles at the 2024 Australian Open, losing in the first round.
