Marketa Vondrousova’s four-year ban shook the tennis world. Now, Andy Roddick has offered the clearest explanation ever of how the system works for players. The 2023 Wimbledon champion was suspended after the ITIA ruled that her refusal to grant a tester access to her home in December 2025 did not meet the threshold of “no compelling justification,” but Roddick was baffled at the reasoning. 

“If someone would have showed up at my house,” said the former pro speaking on the Served Podcast. “And my hour is 5 to 6, and they say, oh, you know what? I’m going to show up at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I would say, get lost. Or I would call someone to say, hey, listen, I just want this on record. This is not the time.”

The American even explained the mechanics of the testing protocol, especially the whereabouts rules, from a player’s perspective. At the same time, he also acknowledged that it is indeed very stressful but time-bound.

“The way that it works when you’re a player is that you have to provide an hour to be tested, and you don’t know when that test is coming. You don’t know if you’re going to get tested back-to-back days. You don’t know if it’s going to be six months in between at-home tests. So during my career, it was 5 to 6 a.m. That was what you gave for every day period,” Roddick explained.

Vondrousova explained to the Board that she had acute stress, pointing to the home invasion suffered by her compatriot and Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in 2016 as the reason for her fear, but it was not enough. Following the ban, Vondrousova also penned a heartbreaking note detailing her side of the story.

Roddick was clear that the inflexibility of the testing window applies to both sides, and it’s this inflexibility that, in his opinion, is what makes or breaks the refusal by Vondrousova. Whether the tester came in before or after Vondrousova’s designated testing time is the basis of the entire case for her.

Roddick says his opinion hinges entirely on the timing

The former American world No. 1 was careful not to make any hasty assumptions and emphasized that his backing is based on facts that have yet to be independently confirmed outside of Marketa Vondrousova’s version of events. 

“What I want to know, and I think she said it wasn’t during the time allotted. If it’s not during the time that she had given or the hour that she had given, then they’re wrong. Vondrousova said it at this point, we have no reason not to believe what she’s saying,” he said. 

He then laid out the scenario that would change his mind entirely. “If they go outside of that, and let’s say her hour is 7 to 8 a.m. and someone knocks on her door at 8.30 at night, story is totally plausible. My opinion changes if it’s during the hour that she’s given. It’s that simple to me,” Roddick stated. 

The ITIA’s own declaration did not mention the timing as a point of contention. Instead, CEO Karen Moorhouse emphasized the importance of unpredictable testing to ensure the protection of clean sport. Roddick’s framing brings the focus directly back to that procedural detail, and until it’s clarified, the debate he has reignited remains unresolved.