A women’s tennis professional is suing the WTA for failing to protect players from consuming contaminated meat, leading to her doping violation.
British tennis player Tara Moore, 33, was handed a four-year ban in July after testing positive for steroids boldenone and nandrolone at a tournament in Colombia in 2022. Moore claims the substances were from consuming contaminated local meat.
Moore filed a lawsuit against the WTA in the Southern District of New York last week, alleging that the organization chose to “stay silent in the face of a known and specific danger and then shifting the blame for its own negligence to the victim.”
“The tour possessed concrete, actionable knowledge of a specific and well-documented danger of contaminated meat in Bogotá, Colombia, yet it chose to remain silent, failing to warn its athletes about that risk,” the lawsuit reads.
Moore received a provisional suspension in May 2022 by the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which was then lifted in December 2023 after an independent organization ruled that her positive test came from contaminated meat.
The ITIA appealed and the ban was reinstated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after it deemed that Moore “did not adequately explain the high level of nandrolone present in their sample.”
Moore, whose best world rankings were No. 145 in singles and No. 77 in doubles, is seeking at least $20 million in compensation from the WTA. She has made $657,178 in her career.
“We are aware of Tara Moore’s filing in the U.S. District Court and will respond through the appropriate legal process,” the WTA said in a statement. “The arbitration was conducted by a neutral arbitrator, and there is no basis to vacate the arbitrator’s award. We respect the judicial process and will not comment further while the matter is pending.”
Where’s the Beef?
The lawsuit comes just days after the Mexican Open, an ATP 500 tournament, told participants that it would not be serving meat in its player restaurant to “minimize the risk of contamination with prohibited anti-doping substances.”
On Wednesday, the ITIA also cleared three tennis players who tested positive for boldenone in Colombia last May after an investigation determined that the positive samples “came as a result of consuming contaminated meat.”
In a lengthy statement, a lawyer for Moore said that she was a “victim twice over” and that the WTA entrapped her.
“In this David-versus-Goliath fight, the WTA knew about the risk of contaminated meat in Bogotá but chose to stay silent, setting a trap for its own dues-paying member,” the lawyer, Dan Weiss, said.
“When Tara sought to hold the WTA accountable for the negligence that ruined her career, the organization refused to accept responsibility and hid behind the unfair anti-doping.”
