Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has seen her life turned upside down by a four-year doping ban, with the Czech star revealing just how deeply the suspension has affected her beyond the tennis court. Giving us a glimpse into her new reality, Vondrousova revealed that she is not even allowed to watch matches from the stands to support the people closest to her or step onto the practice courts at her club.
Vondrousova received the suspension after failing to answer the door to a doping control officer attempting to conduct an out-of-competition test in December 2025. Her ban is set to run until June 21, 2030. In a lengthy statement, the 27-year-old opened up about how the suspension has affected not only her career but also her personal life and relationships.
Having spent much of her life immersed in the sport, many of Vondrousova’s closest friends are tennis players, as is her boyfriend Andrew Paulson, making the ban particularly difficult to navigate. Although she continues to travel to tournaments with her love partner, she cannot attend his matches in person. Instead, she has to watch them online from her hotel room.
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“Because of my ban, I can’t go to his tournaments to support him, not even as a regular spectator without accreditation,” Vondrousova wrote in her statement on Instagram. The former world No. 6 also revealed that the experience brought her to tears the first time she had to watch her boyfriend play this way. Something that had once been a completely ordinary part of her life had suddenly become impossible.
The restrictions are not the only aspect of the suspension that continues to affect Vondrousova. Despite being unable to compete, she remains subject to anti-doping obligations, including providing information about her whereabouts and making herself available for testing.
“I still have to submit my whereabouts, meaning information about where I am, and provide a specific one-hour slot every single day when I’m available for testing,” she explained. Vondrousova added that all her tests have come back negative, yet this has done nothing to ease the restrictions she faces.
In the comments, many fans have expressed their support for Vondrousova, with some questioning the disparity between her four-year ban and Nick Kyrgios’ one-month suspension following a positive test for cocaine. However, allowing athletes to refuse testing without serious consequences would undermine the entire anti-doping system, as no testing program can be effective if players can simply opt out of being tested.
