British doubles player Tara Moore has made her return to the sport after a two-year absence for a doping ban which was later overturned.
Moore teamed up with compatriot Annali Olivelle to win an ITF World Tour first-round match on the Italian island of Sardinia.
They beat the Italian pair of Melania Delai and Francesca Pace 10-6 in a deciding tie-break in Santa Margherita di Pula.
“If someone told me two years ago I’d be playing tennis again I would have never believed it,” Moore posted on X.
“It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t my favourite surface but it still means more than anything.”
Moore and Olivelle will share just $196 (£156) for reaching the quarter-finals.
The 31-year-old was provisionally banned in May 2022 after testing positive for nandrolone metabolites and Boldenone while competing in the Colombian capital Bogota the previous month.
The ban was lifted last December when an independent panel ruled contaminated meat was the source of her failed test.
The tribunal found Moore “bore no fault or negligence” for her adverse analytical finding, but that ruling is being challenged by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.
The appeal will take place at the Court of Arbitration for Sport but a date is yet to be set.
Moore was Britain’s leading women’s doubles player, reaching a career-high ranking of 77th in the world before she was provisionally banned.
She is currently unranked, but set up a fundraising page earlier in the year to help fund her training and expenses – including “food, travel and ongoing legal fees”.