Tara Moore alleges WTA failed to warn about contaminated meat in $20M lawsuit

Former British doubles No. 1 Tara Moore is suing the WTA for $20 million, alleging that her four-year doping suspension was a consequence of the association failing to warn players about the risk of consuming contaminated meat during the tournament in Bogota, Colombia.

In June 2022, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced that Moore’s A sample, taken at the April 2022 Copa Colsanitas, where she reached the doubles final, contained nandrolone metabolites as well as boldenone and its metabolite, all of which were prohibited substances.

Moore was provisionally suspended in May 2022, effectively sidelining her from professional tennis while her case was investigated. She consistently denied any intentional wrongdoing. In December 2023, an independent tribunal accepted that the positive test was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat at the WTA 250 event in Colombia, ruling that Moore bore no fault or negligence and lifting her suspension. The decision cleared her to return to competition, ending nearly 19 months away from the tour.

However, the case took a dramatic turn when the ITIA appealed the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). In July 2025, the CAS panel overturned the earlier decision, siding with the ITIA’s argument that Moore had failed to prove that the concentration of nandrolone in her sample was consistent with ingestion via contaminated meat, effectively sidelining her through much of the 2027 season.

Speaking to The First Serve last year, Moore described feeling abandoned at the outset of the process: I thought that the WTA were going to contact me and help figure out who do I need to speak to? Do I need a lawyer? How am I going to figure this out? I was very naive in thinking they were very much on my side, when it was very clear quite quickly how opposite and how far away from the truth that was.”

In July 2025, Moore issued a statement expressing the emotional toll of the ordeal.

“To be innocent and to have to prove that is an incredibly gruelling process,” she wrote. “You are presumed guilty and have to fight for your life against someone that has more money and resources than you.”

In the same statement, Moore said the three-and-a-half-year battle had broken her into pieces, describing the anti-doping system as fundamentally flawed. While acknowledging the damage done to her own career, she said she was determined to continue fighting to protect future players from facing similar circumstances.

The latest development sees Moore taking her fight to the court. She has filed a $20 million negligence lawsuit against the WTA in the Southern District of New York, accusing the governing body of failing in its duty of care and causing irreparable harm to her career.

A summery of the case reads: “The action, brought by King & Spalding and Reeves & Weiss, claims the WTA failed to warn athletes about contaminated meat risks in Bogota, Colombia, leading to the player’s positive steroid test in April 2022, despite issuing similar warnings for other locations. The suit, which seeks $20 million in damages, argues that an initial tribunal’s exoneration was improperly reversed by a CAS panel that applied incorrect legal standards.” (via: Ubitennis, NY Times)