American No.1 Taylor Fritz has become the latest top player to state that they would have no issue with one of their fellow peers on the Tour coming out as gay.
Currently, there are no openly LGBT players in men’s tennis and historically there have been few. Brian Vahaly is a former top 100 player but didn’t fully come to terms with his sexuality until stepping away from the sport. Another notable example is 10-time Grand Slam champion Bill Tilden who struggled with his sexuality during a time when gay sex was illegal and not accepted by society. Tilden, who also won multiple major titles in the doubles and Davis Cup trophies, was one of the world’s best players throughout the 1920s.
The lack of openly gay players in men’s tennis is a stark contrast to the women’s Tour with the likes of Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King becoming among the first openly LGBT athletes in the world in the 1980s. More recently there has been Amelie Mauresmo, Alison Van Uytvanck and Daria Kasarkina. At this year’s French Open there were seven openly gay women’s players.
Questioned about the subject during an in-depth interview with website publication Clay, world No.9 Fritz admits that it is ‘odd’ that there have been no openly gay players on the Tour but says it would not be an issue.
“I’m not sure if there are homosexual tennis players in the top 100,” Fritz told Clay. “Statistically speaking, there should be. … I think it is odd, because I feel like a player would be accepted.
“Myself and my friends, other players on tour wouldn’t have any issues with it, it would be totally normal and I think people would be accepting.”
Fritz suggested that players may not want to publicly come out due to the surge in media interest it could generate. When British footballer Jake Daniels came out earlier this year, his story made headline news and generated reactions from many top figures in the sport around the world.
“I couldn’t tell you why (no one has come out),” Fritz said.
“That would be a lot of big news and maybe people just don’t want to be in the spotlight, maybe they don’t want the distraction of getting all the attention and stuff like that.”
It is not the first time a top player has weighed in on the topic. Novak Djokovic has previously said that a player coming out on the men’s Tour would be a ‘courageous move.’ Speaking during the 2018 ATP Finals, the former world No.1 told reporters that ‘it’s everybody’s right to have sexual orientation as they desire.”
More recently at the 2021 US Open, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Felix Auger-Aliassime all spoke in support of potentially having an LGBT peer on the Tour.
In July the ATP announced a new partnership with The You Can Play Project aimed at improving LGBT inclusivity in the sport following a survey that was conducted. A key finding was that there is a widespread use of homophobic language on the Tour but these levels are consistent with other sports. This term refers to the use of homophobic phrases in general and not specifically being used to insult a person. 65 players took part in the survey with 95% of those being aged 31 or under.
According to a study published by The International Review for the Sociology of Sport, athletes develop greater happiness and self-confidence within their sport after coming out. Their findings were based on accounts of 60 different male athletes which were published on the LGBT Sports website outsports.com. Meanwhile, another study focused on North American High School athletes found that 89% of LGBT tennis players said they received a positive response when they came out to their teammates with the other 11% saying they received a ‘neutral’ response.
