Tara Moore’s £15m lawsuit against WTA dismissed by US court

Tara Moore’s legal claim for £15m ($20m) against the Women’s Tennis Association was dismissed by the United States District Court in New York on 22 September 2026, the court having been asked to review her challenge to earlier arbitration decisions in a doping case.

Moore, 34, has been banned from playing until the start of the 2028 season after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) ruled in favour of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) last year. She tested positive for nandrolone and boldenone in April 2022 at a WTA 250 event in Bogota and an independent tribunal in December 2023 found contaminated meat was the source, concluding she bore "no fault or negligence". The ITIA appealed that tribunal decision to Cas, which resulted in the four-year suspension.

Moore initiated proceedings with the American Arbitration Association arguing the WTA’s alleged failure to warn players about the risk of eating contaminated meat in Colombia was a direct cause of her positive test and the ensuing harm. The arbitrator upheld the Cas ruling and dismissed Moore’s claim against the WTA, after which she filed a motion in the United States District Court in New York asserting she had been denied a fair hearing. In that motion she said she was seeking "no less than $20m in compensatory damages" and alleged the WTA had "stayed silent in the face of a known and specific danger and then shifted the blame for its own negligence" to the player.

On Friday, United States district judge Andrew Carter found Moore’s challenge was "not justified" on a legal basis; the court dismissed the motion and directed to "close this matter". The dismissal ends this particular legal effort to overturn the arbitration outcome and the Cas decision that led to her ban.

Moore told BBC Sport after the ruling that the case has been a "nightmare" and added: "It just shows how broken the anti-doping system is in tennis." She reached a career-high ranking of 77th in the world in 2022 and was Britain’s leading women’s doubles player at the time of the failed test.

The court’s dismissal leaves the arbitration and Cas outcomes intact and Moore’s ban in place until the start of the 2028 season; the WTA and the ITIA have been approached for comment.