British tennis player has case against the WTA 'thrown out' by a New York judge following doping controversy

Tara Moore has been fighting a legal battle against the WTA for a few years now, and it has gone horribly wrong. The 34-year-old British tennis player failed in this pursuit while currently suspended from tennis after testing positive for two prohibited substances back in 2022.

Moore had reached a career high of 145th in the world back in 2017 and was a handy tennis player on the court. She reached the Wimbledon second round in 2016 and won a grand total of nine ITF singles titles and 18 doubles.

However, the biggest headline is not surrounding her ability on the court. The Brit sparked controversy back in 2022 after traces of nandrolone and boldenone, both anabolic steroids, were found in a urine sample she submitted for testing.

The WTA and International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) have clamped down with their punishments surrounding doping, known to hand out some very harsh and strict punishments.

A year later, she was initially cleared of any wrongdoing, with an independent tribunal ruling that the result was caused by eating contaminated meat while she was competing in Bogota, Colombia. However, that is now where this story ends.

The ITIA appealed the decision, and their argument was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). They came to the final outcome that Moore was unable to prove that the sample was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat.

Over the last years, Moore had done everything she could to get back at the WTA. She vowed her innocence of any wrongdoing and launched a £15 million lawsuit against the WTA in New York.

She argued that negligence on their behalf destroyed her tennis career. She accused the governing body of failing to warn the players competing about the risk of contaminated meat in the Colombian capital. Added to that, she put forward that her initial exoneration was "improperly reversed by a CAS panel that applied incorrect legal standards".

This has all fizzled out, having been thrown out by a New York judge. The £15m damages claim was dismissed while ruling that the CAS decision should remain intact.

Daniel Weiss, the lawyer who represented Moore, had previously spoken to the New York Post about the case. "Tara Moore is a victim twice over: first of the WTA’s negligence, and then of a fundamentally flawed anti-doping system that presumed she was guilty without any evidence of wrongdoing. All this petition asks is for a federal court to ensure Tara gets what she was always promised: a fair hearing based on evidence, not a presumption of guilt."

Last year, Moore took to social media to state her innocence. "I don’t need a panel to tell me I’m innocent. I know the integrity I bring, and I know I am innocent. I believe everyone over the past couple of years can see how subjective this process is. I have been the underdog. I have had my life as I knew it ripped away from me because the organisations and people in power failed to do what was right.

"They may have taken my fight away on the court, yet my fight is not over, not for me or others like me. The anti-doping system is broken. I am proof of this. We need to fix it. Not for me as it’s too late, but for future players who find themselves in this unfortunate situation. I have so much more to say when the time is right."

Moore had previously been handed a four-year ban back in July 2025. She will be suspended from tennis until December 2027.