U.S. Tennis president is an out and proud gay man with a husband, 2 kids and a vision for the sport

Brian Vahaly wears several hats.

He’s chairman and president of the U.S.Tennis Assn. board, the national governing body for tennis in the United States. He’s a former professional tennis player, who reached a high of  No. 64 in the world before succumbing to a shoulder injury. He’s an alumni and the first All-American player at the University of Virginia. With a double degree in business and finance, he serves as a senior advisor at Brown Advisory. He’s also a husband — he married his partner, Bill Jones, in 2015 — and a father to twins, Parker and Bennett.

Ahead of the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 18, Outsports spoke with Vahaly about his history with professional and collegiate tennis, balancing life as a husband and father, his new role at the USTA, and the organization’s initiatives to expand access and make tennis a trailblazer in equal opportunity for all communities.

Outsports: When did you first start playing the game?

Vahaly: I started playing back when I was 2 years old in Atlanta. I don’t know a life without tennis. I played my first tournament at 6 years old. What became a fun hobby playing at local parks became a job at a very young age. 

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Gay USTA president is ‘passionate’ about bringing LGBTQ voices to the pro tennis table
Brian Vahaly has been the USTA President and Board Chairman for under a year. He’s bringing LGBTQ voices to the table.

Gay USTA president is ‘passionate’ about bringing LGBTQ voices to the pro tennis table
Brian Vahaly has been the USTA President and Board Chairman for under a year. He’s bringing LGBTQ voices to the table.

Did you always know you wanted to be a professional tennis player?

There was always the dream of playing professionally, but I was aware of the reality that the vast majority of athletes don’t make it to that level. I grew up watching Andre Agassi and Michael Chang — heroes of mine. After reaching world No. 17 in the juniors, I was one of the few players who decided to go to college. I saw it as a viable option not just for my tennis but primarily for my college education. 

At the time, playing collegiate tennis and going pro was more of an either-or situation. What helped you decide to go to college before going pro, and how was your experience?

It was an unusual path but the right one. The difficult lifestyle of traveling the world, finding financial sponsors, and managing a busy schedule all in a relatively individual and lonely sport is an understandable difficult struggle for any 18-year-old. Going to the University of Virginia to play college tennis was a great decision, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. It came with some potential sacrifice of losing years on tour, but it developed my game and gave me tremendous career opportunities to fall back on, allowing me to be the best player I could be on court.

How did you begin to work with the USTA and what initiatives are you focused on?

After I retired at 27 from professional tennis, I was asked to serve on the board of the USTA. It felt like a wonderful opportunity at that stage of my life to give back. I started as a volunteer for the USTA at 16. Eventually I was elected to serve as president and chairman of the board. 

Our goal is to try to serve every community as best as we can to make tennis easily accessible, from investing in public courts to increasing financial commitments to nonprofits like the Trevor Project to prioritize mental health. 

You came out as gay several years after playing professional tennis. At what age did you realize you were gay, and how did this affect your upbringing? 

I didn’t come to terms with my sexuality until my mid 20s. One of the things tennis teaches you is how to compartmentalize your feelings. There were some I had that I treated as bad ones, and some I denied outright.

Early on, I equated the LGBTQ community with pride parades and bars, none of which I saw myself reflected in. I was an athlete first. I grew up in a conservative, religious upbringing and I wasn’t drawn to that world. Because of this, I was fairly lonely and confused, wasting many years of my life not understanding myself and feeling like an outlier.

During this time, I attended conversion therapy through a church. It was with a group of other men … who were deemed sexual deviants. After a while, you begin to believe that you are some kind of defect yourself.

We had daily or weekly meetings, accountability partners, connecting with each other about our shame, talking about how God could sort of help you through this horrible defect that you had. When you hear that week after week, it’s hard not to believe it a little bit.

And frankly, it was in my mind, helping me to get to the path toward marriage, love and kids, which I thought could only be through a heterosexual relationship. It was hard to want that so badly and feel like my body was betraying me and how to to reconcile that. I just wasted a lot of time fighting against who I authentically am, and that came with some damage.

It took a while to unpack this experience later in my life after sitting in a room where you’re consistently shamed for who you are. It’s hard. But I did this voluntarily.

What motivates me about telling my story and having more athletes tell their story? It’s incredibly confusing when you don’t have people to talk to. You don’t understand the landscape well and you’ve got a lot of personal history to navigate through, telling your friends. What does this mean? Can I still go to church and feel this way? And even at times, the belief that I could still, if I was ultimately attracted to women in some capacity, is there a way that I can fix this or change it? And how can a religious conversion therapy group help me do that?

There’s a lot of unfortunate decisions and a lot of confusing times that I had and I’d love to help other people and in this sort of sports landscape avoid. Because I wasted a lot of years that I shouldn’t have. Now, my goal is to help people not make the same mistake I did.

After your experience in conversion therapy, how did you reconcile your faith with your sexuality?

Today, I’m on the board of the board of directors for the Washington National Cathedral, which is sort of the church of our country. And it’s been great. I quickly learned that I’m not a big fan of organized religion, but I am a big believer in God.

There is hypocrisy in organized religious places, so I’m certainly not comfortable aligning with organized religion, but there are wonderful churches to be connected to. I think the Washington National Cathedral is an unbelievably accepting and loving and warm place. So I found a great church and I think the spiritual component of people’s lives are really important. I worry about members of our community who just feel so unwelcomed, because I do think part of mental health lies in spiritual health as well.

I’ve been able to find that balance, but it is a hard balance. It’s hard to notice that in many churches you go into, you are not welcomed in the love-the-sinner, hate-the-sin approach. But I’m not willing to write off God because of the way humans in organized religions behave. So for me, it’s always a delicate balance. And I certainly respect many members of our community who want nothing to do with it. However, it’s a space that’s important to me. 

The women’s tour has a number of out gay players. But in comparison, the men’s tour has only one who has come out while playing. Why do you think this is? Was there something in particular that dissuaded you from coming out while you were on tour? 

When I was playing professional tennis in the 2000s, it was a different time and culture, one where being openly gay wasn’t quite as socially acceptable. There were amendments going on to constitutionally ban gay marriage. People were losing their careers over coming out. 

I also had hurdles around my religious upbringing to get through. I had hurdles within sport where you often heard homophobic language used as a means to create humor in the locker room, creating a lot of internalized homophobia.

When you work at something for 20-plus years and you’re fortunate enough to be able to become a professional and make a living, it’s the ultimate dream. To take a risk and and talk about sexuality felt like the opportunity to take a sport I loved away from me. And that was a risk, and based on the work I had put in, it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take, let alone the fears that I had, as you think about traveling to countries … where it was illegal to be gay. … And so now, by coming out, I’m limiting where I can play. It felt like a distraction to focus on love and not the quality of my play.  That was a bridge too far for me, especially as somebody who considers himself quite an introvert; I wasn’t ready to be known as the gay player. 

Afterwards, the driving decision behind my coming out was to share my story in hopes of being a role model to show the type of life my younger self never saw, but always wanted: a life that included being in love, having kids, and all while being an athlete.

Now, you’ve come a long way since this point, fulfilling your dreams to be married and with children. 

My life has considerably changed, especially since our kids were born. I think deeply about my kids’ future and what kind of parent I want to be to them. That’s more important to me than beating some Top 10 players.

This year, the U.S. open is hosting its fifth annual Pride event. Is there an itinerary yet? 

On Aug. 28, we will be hosting U.S. Open Pride, including a brunch and celebrations in the evening at Arthur Ashe Stadium. My goal is to make tennis the most inclusive sport that it can be, and having people from all walks of life feel welcomed at a sports event. And selfishly, I believe tennis is the right sport for all communities.

Is there anything special about this year’s U.S. Open you are looking forward to?

After watching Serena [Williams] play against [Roger] Federer at the Hopman Cup in 2019, I kept thinking: How could we get some of the greatest men’s and women’s players ever on a court together? Now, we’re launching a brand-new approach to the U.S. Open mixed doubles. All of the top players will be competing for a Grand Slam title and a $1 million prize during the fan week so that it doesn’t interfere with the singles schedule. This has never been done before, and I think it highlights the inclusive nature of our sport.  

Mixed doubles in the past has struggled with fan attendance and publicity. Did this play a part in the U.S. Open’s decision to change the draw?

Yes. The mixed doubles finals were not drawing crowds. Most players were picking their partner the week before the tournament. For us, that didn’t feel deserving of a Grand Slam title — an honor that stays with you for life. Knowing that mixed doubles had so much potential, we wanted to reimagine what it could be. We are incredibly proud to see our top athletes competing, and we’re not surprised that ESPN wanted to televise it and that the venue sold out.

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