Coco Gauff has spoken out on Marketa Vondrousova’s four-year ban from tennis that has stopped her competing at Wimbledon this year. The 2023 champion was charged by the Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for refusing to do a doping test in December 2025.
Vondrousova is said to have denied a doping control officer entry to her house. The Czech star claimed she did so on safety grounds and accused them of failing to follow “protocol.”
The former world No.6 is not allowed to return to tennis until June 2030 and many of her fellow pros have given her their backing at SW19 this week.
Gauff said: “I mean, obviously I know the rules are the rules. It is tough to see someone you know who for sure is 100% clean – I think. Obviously, I don’t know, but for track record and everything, 100% clean, respecting the sport.
“Things are circumstantial. Me, I’ve had some weird testing incidents, had complaints to the testing agency about certain things.
“But I’ve never been to the point where I refused a test. That’s never happened. I’ve been tried to have been tested outside my time slot before. Obviously the times that I have, that I make contact, I just take the test. What can you do? There has been times that they’re there and I’m not there, but you’re not obligated to take it if you’re not there.
“I’m not going to lie, some of them can be pushy, make you feel like you’re doing something wrong. One time she came outside my time slot. But the way she was speaking to me on the phone, it literally made me cry afterwards. I found out I was in the right, and I didn’t have to do anything.
“I think it’s a case-by-case type of situation. I obviously send all my love to Marketa. I mean, four years is pretty tough. I couldn’t imagine being in the position she is in. I wish her all the best. Hopefully we can all learn from the situation.”
Fellow American Jessica Pegula added: “It’s just really unfortunate. I feel like for Marketa, I don’t know the ins and outs of exactly what happened, it seems like there’s a lot of “he said, she said” kind of things going on right now.
“But I just think for something like that, for four years, you’re ruining someone’s career over something that could have really just been a complete misunderstanding, and I just don’t think that’s fair. I think the sentencing is so harsh.
“You know, I don’t know if she’s going to appeal it with CAS [Court of Arbitration for Sport] or what’s going on. I just think there has got to be a solution where we’re not just totally destroying someone’s career over something where she didn’t even test positive.”