{"id":614488,"date":"2026-04-18T06:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/614488\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T06:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:05:10","slug":"marketa-vondrousova-reveals-mental-health-struggles-behind-doping-control-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/614488\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketa Vondrousova reveals mental health struggles behind doping control incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova opened up about her mental health battles, revealing she suffered an Acute Stress Reaction during a doping control incident.<\/p>\n

Czech Vondrousova, who won the Wimbledon title in 2023, said the December incident occurred because she had “reached a breaking point after months of physical and mental stress”.<\/p>\n

In December, Vondrousova \u200bdescribed a “serious intrusion into my privacy” from a doping control officer who arrived demanding an immediate \u200btest.<\/p>\n

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“It is very tough for me to talk about this, but I want \u2060to be transparent with you about my mental health,” 26-year-old Vondrousova wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n

“For a long time, \u200bI’ve been dealing with injury, constant pressure and ongoing sleep issues that left me feeling exhausted and fragile.<\/p>\n

“\u200bIt slowly wore me down more than I probably realised at the time.<\/p>\n

“Years of hateful messages and threats have affected how safe I feel in my own space.<\/p>\n

“When someone rang my door late at night without properly identifying themselves \u200bor following protocol — I reacted as a person who felt scared.<\/p>\n

“In that moment, it was about feeling safe, \u200bnot about avoiding anything.”<\/p>\n

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said it was aware of Vondrousova’s comments \u200cand confirmed \u2060that she was not serving a mandatory provisional suspension.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Marketa Vondrousova.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“We can confirm that an investigation is underway and the player has been charged with refusing a test,” the agency said.<\/p>\n

“At this stage, we are not able to comment any further on the specifics.”<\/p>\n

Vondrousova has not played a tournament since the Adelaide International in \u200bJanuary and withdrew from the Australian \u200bOpen citing a shoulder \u2060injury.<\/p>\n

She is on the entry list for the Madrid Open starting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She revealed that experts confirmed she suffered an Acute Stress Reaction and Generalised \u200bAnxiety Disorder.<\/p>\n

“In that moment, fear clouded my judgment and I just couldn’t \u200bprocess the situation \u2060rationally,” she said.<\/p>\n

Vondrousova referred to twice Wimbledon champion and compatriot Petra Kvitova who suffered severe wounds to her left hand in a struggle with a knife-wielding intruder at her home.<\/p>\n

“After what happened to Petra, we don’t \u2060take strangers \u200bat our door lightly,” Vondrousova added.<\/p>\n

“I’m trying to slowly find \u200bmy way back \u2014 both on and off the court … I’m still working to clear my name, but at the same time I \u200bneed to take care of myself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova opened up about her mental health battles, revealing she suffered an Acute Stress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-614488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}