British player Tara Moore launches GoFundMe to restart career after doping ban reversal

While former world No. 1 and Grand Slam champion Simona Halep returned to top-level competition this week at the Miami Open after her high-profile doping saga reached its end, 31-year-old British player Tara Moore has launched a GoFundMe to restart her tennis career after her own ban was overturned at the end of last year.

In May of 2022, it was announced by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) that Moore had tested positive for the banned substances nandrolone and boldenone as a result of a test taken while she was competing at the WTA 250 in Bogota, Colombia. But nineteen months later, in December of 2023, an independent tribunal ruled that Moore bore "no fault or negligence” for the positive test, which was attributed to eating contaminated meat.

"It's going to take more than 19 months to rebuild, repair and recuperate what we've been through, but we will come back stronger than ever," Moore wrote in a statement at the time of the independent tribunal's decision. And unlike Halep's high-profile case, which was watched with interest by many including Miami Open tournament director James Blake, the two-time WTA doubles finalist is turning to the genorosity of tennis fans worldwide to help get her road back to tennis' biggest events rolling.

Now unranked, Moore is asking for support to help fund training and expenses that include "food, travel, and ongoing legal fees."

“From being suspended and treated guilty until proven innocent, to losing my ranking ... I am now exonerated and feel mentally ready to take back my Grand Slam positions," Moore wrote on her crowdfunding page, which as this writing on March 25, has raised nearly $7,500 from more than 50 backers.

The Briton has received support from Judy Murray, the former British Billie Jean King Cup captain, as well as Halep's former and Jannik Sinner's current coach Darren Cahill in the aftermath of her ban being reversed. (Cahill was also a vocal supporter of his former charge Halep's efforts to clear her name.)

"This timeline is so bad. It’ll take Tara 18-24 months to recover her rankings if everything goes perfectly," Cahill wrote on X in December. "Tennis is a unique sport where we are wiped out & back to zero after 12 months. The WTA should reinstate her rankings or at very least provide provisional rankings."

Moore owns a career-high WTA doubles ranking of No. 77, the perch she was at when she tested positive, and a best singles ranking of No. 145. When the news of Halep's return to top-level tennis broke earlier this month, Moore took to social media to

"Great that Simona Halep is able to get back onto her feet so quickly," she wrote. "Shame it’s not the same for myself and other players who have been exonerated that aren’t so high on the totem pole."

In January, the BBC reported that the ITIA planned to appeal the independent tribunal's decision in Moore's case to the Court for Arbitration of Sport, the same body that shortened Halep's initial four-year ban to a suspended sentence of nine months.