3 reasons there is only 1 out gay player in men’s pro tennis

Here are some of the top ATP stars who have publicly said they would support an openly gay men’s pro tennis player: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Liam Brody, Kevin Anderson, Daniil Medvedev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Mardy Fish and Sam Querrey:

Despite this support, men’s tennis has not had an openly gay player until Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, ranked 400th in the world, came out in an Instagram post in December. With only one out player, and none within the top 100, the question remains: Is tennis ready for gay male players? 

Known for being a sport that has been a pioneer on social issues such as equal pay and access to tennis for disabled people with the wheelchair tour, men’s tennis has lagged behind other sports in the number of openly gay players.

In soccer, Robbie Rogers and Collin Martin came out while in the MLS, football had Carl Nassib, and Jason Collins became the first openly gay basketball player, all out while playing. Tennis hardly seems like a hostile environment to openly gay players. There are only sporadic instances of rebuff toward gay players, including women’s grand slam record holder Margaret Court’s comparison of teaching LGBT issues in schools to the work of ‘the devil’ and Holger Rune’s use of homophobic slurs during an ATP match. But these instances are few and far between compared to the amount of support for an openly gay player. 

Get off the sidelines and into the game

Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

The ATP has been ranking players since 1973. At any given time, anywhere from 1,800 to 2,000 players obtain a professional ranking. In its history, the ATP has never had a single openly gay tennis player until 2024. 

Related

Five out gay tennis players set for Australian Open, all of them women
Russia’s Daria Kasatkina is the highest-ranked out LGBTQ player for the event in Melbourne. As usual, there are no out gay male players.

Tennis pro Joao Lucas Reis da Silva is Outsports’ 2024 Male Hero Of The Year
Brazilian tennis pro Joao Lucas Reis da Silva came out as gay in 2024. For his fearlessness, he is Outsports’ Male Hero of the Year.

This makes the ratio 1/10,000+, which doesn’t even include the ranked men’s doubles players. Sounds statistically impossible, right? According to Taylor Fritz, the top-ranked American player, “It’s strange [that no top player has come out] because I think it would be accepted. No one on the tour would have a problem with that… Statistically speaking, [there] should be. Statistically. But not that I know. I think it is odd because I feel like a player would be accepted.”

USTA chairman of the board Brian Vahaly and former world No. 64, who came out in 2017, has said that, despite hearing often crude language, he never found “the Tour to be overtly homophobic.” 

I can echo Vahaly’s sentiment. While I was never at his level, I was an openly gay tennis player who competed in college and in junior tournaments. I found tennis to be a remarkably accepting sport. With the exception of one player who questioned whether my sexuality made me suited to be team captain, I never experienced any direct backlash from either coaches or teammates. In general, I received an outpouring of love from the tennis community, making it bewildering to me why tennis lags behind every other major sport.

I see three possible explanations for the lack of openly gay pro men’s tennis players.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by João Lucas Reis (@joaolreis)

Focus on the individual

One is the sport itself. The hyper-individualistic nature of tennis makes it mentally grueling and often isolating, unlike team sports where men have the camaraderie and mutual support of their teammates. Traveling every weekend to chase ranking points and prize money consumes the headspace of most players, leaving coming out publicly a low priority.

Gender differences

Another contributing factor may be chalked up to differences in gender. There have been numerous out female players over the years — going back to Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova — and there are five competing in the Australian Open. Women in general are twice as likely to identify as LGBTQ, largely because of greater acceptance among other women and more fluidity with identification. On the other hand, reconciling masculinity with sexuality is often a particularly unique struggle among gay men, especially within a sports context.

The Tour itself is a problem

Last, it could be an institutional problem.

The ATP tour continues to play in countries where homosexuality is illegal, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. A lack of openly gay players means the ATP can remain complicit on this issue, accepting partnerships and exhibition tournaments with significant prize money, most recently in Saudi Arabia.

This is while the ATP engages in a concerted effort to brand itself as a sport dedicated to inclusivity, launching initiatives to improve the culture around gay players. Improving the conditions for gay athletes on an institutional level is not about creating a friendlier locker room environment or having Pride events at major events: it has real-world consequences, namely their physical safety. The ATP cannot have its cake and eat it too.

Conversely, the WTA, with numerous openly gay women’s players, has been forced to reckon with the issue of player safety. Former American world No. 1 Andy Roddick raised concerns about the WTA and ATP’s partnership with Saudi Arabia after the women’s player Daria Kasatkina came out in 2023: “The devil is in the details. Homosexuality is illegal. But we have openly gay players. Kasatkina came out last year. If she goes there to play, are we just telling her to take a week off of her sexuality? How do we protect our own players, whose life choices are viewed as criminal when they enter this place? How do we protect those mechanisms? And can whatever is said now be trusted when it’s in practice?” 

While the top 100 players can most likely afford to skip tournaments at their leisure, players ranked below are often forced to overlook human rights violations for prize money to pay their basic cost of living. A Berkeley Economic Review analysis determined that “out of the world’s major sports, tennis players receive the lowest percentage of the sports revenue in salaries and/or prize money… a mere 17.5%.

Even more striking, the disparity between “the 32nd and first highest-paid players” in the ATP is a whopping “1000%,” compared to the MLB, “which was 62%.” Simply put, coming out risks limiting the number of countries that an openly gay player can travel to, therefore, capping potential season earnings. 

The answer is clear: if the ATP wants to promote inclusivity, it should look inward first. The ATP should be reforming the pay structure and refusing to play in countries where its own players could be thrown in jail, rather than focusing on red herrings such as DEI statements and requiring players to watch “science-based educational content” to increase players’ acceptance of gay athletes.

If anything, given the dozens of players who have supported gay athletes, it should be the players educating the ATP on what it means to champion equality.

Colby Grey is a freelance writer who reports on sports, travel, lifestyle, politics and finance. He played college tennis for UC Santa Cruz and told his coming out story in 2019.

Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.

The post 3 reasons there is only 1 out gay player in men’s pro tennis appeared first on Outsports.