British tennis player Tara Moore cleared of doping allegations

Tara Moore (YouTube)

According to the Associated Press on Saturday, British women’s doubles specialist Tara Moore of Doncaster, England has been cleared of any wrongdoing after testing positive for steroids during a women’s tennis tournament in 2022 in Bogota, Colombia. It has been determined that Moore obtained the steroids of boldenone and nandrolone after consuming contaminated meat while at the 250-level clay court doubles event.

Interestingly, Moore, a doubles specialist, and her partner, Emina Bektas of the United States reached the final of the 2022 Copa Colsanitas, before losing a nail biter to Australian Astra Sharma of Perth and Indonesia’s Aldila Sutjiadi, 6-2, 4-6, [10-7]. This was the second time in Moore’s career she reached a WTA doubles final. She also reached a women’s doubles final seven years ago with partner Conny Perrin of Switzerland in the final of the 2016 Rio Open. Moore and Perrin lost to Paraguay’s Veronica Cepede Royg, and Argentina’s Maria Irigoyen, 6-1, 7-6.

Moore has won one grand slam singles match in her career. That came at Wimbledon in 2016, where she beat Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck, 6-3, 6-2.

At the time of the suspension, Moore was ranked 83rd in women’s doubles. She then actually improved to 77th in the world in women’s doubles in July of 2022. Moore is currently ranked 104th in the world in women’s doubles, however there is a significant push in the international tennis community to have her world ranking points she lost during her time away from tennis reinstated. On X, Darren Cahill of ESPN, (and former coach of Simona Halep of Romania, who ironically has also been suspended),  stated the following, “The @WTA should reinstate her rankings or at very least provide provisional rankings.”