British Tennis Ace Sues WTA for $20M After Being Handed Ban for Eating Steroid-Contaminated Meat
Tara Moore has accused the WTA of ruining her career by not warning her about contaminated beef during a tournament in Bogota back in 2022.
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Tara Moore (Image via LTA)
British tennis player Tara Moore was slapped with a four-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July 2025 after being found positive for prohibited anabolic steroids nandrolone and boldenone in 2022. Moore, who has always maintained that her case was a case of accidental contamination, was initially cleared of any wrongdoing by an independent tribunal in 2023.
But the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) appealed the case before the CAS, which then imposed a four-year ban on her. Moore filed a $20 million lawsuit on February 12th in the Southern District of New York against the WTA, accusing the tennis body of ruining her career by not warning the players about contaminated meat.
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.
The summary of the case reads
While the ITIA and the CAS have yet to comment regarding the lawsuit, the WTA has responded in a statement.
The arbitration was conducted by a neutral arbitrator, and there’s no basis to vacate the arbitrator’s award. We respect the judicial process and will not comment further while the matter is pending.
Moore ate beef while competing at a WTA 250 event in Bogota, Colombia, in April 2022. She said the WTA did not warn players about the meat despite allegedly knowing about the use of steroids in cattle farming. She was handed the ban in 2022, and later an independent tribunal concluded that the source of contamination was the beef she ate in Bogota.
The majority of the CAS panel took ITIA’s side and overturned the independent tribunal’s decision. The ITIA had argued that Moore had failed to provide the source of contamination. In her four-year ban,19 months were deducted because she had served her provisional suspension. She won’t be eligible to compete until 2027.
Tara Moore’s lawyer accuses WTA of negligence
In the same tournament, ATP player Robert Farah also failed the drug test, but he was cleared of any wrongdoing because the ITIA concluded that he had eaten contaminated meat. Tara Moore’s lawyer, Daniel Weiss, has accused the WTA of negligence and criticized tennis’ anti-doping system.
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.
Daniel Weiss told The New York Post
Moore censured the anti-doping system a lot when the tennis world was rocked by the doping scandals of two high-profile players, Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek, last year. Both the top two players were cleared of any wrongdoing and faced no harsh punishments. Swiatek faced just a one-month ban, while Sinner was given a three-month ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
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.
Daniel Weiss added
The 33-year-old turned pro in 2010 and has yet to win a tour-level title in either singles or doubles. She has won nine ITF titles in singles and 18 in doubles. Moore is a former World No.77 in doubles. In Grand Slam singles, she has made one main-draw appearance, while in doubles, she has never reached the third round.
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