It takes a lot to unsettle Marketa Vondrousova, but a knock at 8:15 p.m. managed it. The 2023 Wimbledon champion ended her season bruised, patched up, and plotting a healthier 2025 — only to be met by an unexpected visitor who wasn’t interested in slice volleys or rehab updates, just her urine sample. And crucially, he arrived outside the one-hour daily window she is required to keep free.
In a pointed Instagram statement, the Czech left-hander said players are compelled to be home and available for one specific hour every day, and she follows that rule “every single day.” But on this particular evening, she said, a tester turned up unannounced, told her the window “didn’t matter,” and insisted she be tested immediately.
When she pushed back, noting the intrusion into her home and her privacy, the official allegedly replied: “That’s the life of a professional athlete.”
For Vondrousova, the issue wasn’t the test itself but the disregard. She said it’s not about avoiding testing but about expecting the rules to be respected on both sides. Is it normal, she asked, for doping officers to sit in athletes’ living rooms at night waiting for a sample? Respect for the system, she argued, should include respect for players’ private lives after long days of training and competition.
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Her frustration comes against the backdrop of a system that has already ended — or at least derailed — multiple careers. Tennis’ anti-doping programme requires athletes to nominate a precise one-hour window every day for out-of-competition testing. Miss that window three times in 12 months and the sport treats it as a positive test.
Just ask Mikael Ymer. The Swede collected three whereabouts failures in 2022, was initially cleared, then undone when the CAS ruled his explanation — caring for his younger brother overnight — simply didn’t align with evidence. The acquittal vanished, an 18-month ban followed, and Ymer walked away from the sport before attempting a lower-tier comeback in 2025, finishing the year outside the top 600.
Jenson Brooksby endured a similar fate. He accepted two strikes but disputed the second, arguing the tester hadn’t done enough to locate him. The tribunal disagreed, called his fault “high,” and handed him the same 18-month exile. His return in 2025 was far brighter — a title in Houston, a sprint back into the Top 100 — but the lost time still lingers.
That’s the context Vondrousova’s grievance drops into: a system where one missed hour can cost a career, yet enforcement, as she argues, doesn’t always respect its own boundaries.
The Czech ended her year at No. 34, a season stitched together through pain — a Berlin title, a US Open quarterfinal run cut short by injury — and now an off-court row she never asked for. Whether her complaint prompts reflection or simply disappears into bureaucracy remains to be seen, but her message was unmistakable: fairness cuts both ways, even in anti-doping.
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