The first openly gay men's tennis player wants to make the sport more welcoming to queer athletes Max GaoAugust 20, 2025 at 1:52 AM Brian Vahaly, left, with his husband and two children before the women's singles match at the U.S. Open in 2021 in Flushing, N.Y.
- - The first openly gay men's tennis player wants to make the sport more welcoming to queer athletes
Max GaoAugust 20, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Brian Vahaly, left, with his husband and two children before the women's singles match at the U.S. Open in 2021 in Flushing, N.Y. (Garrett Ellwood / USTA via AP file)
Brian Vahaly doesn't know his life without tennis. After first picking up a racket at the age of 2, Vahaly was a star athlete from 1997 to 2001 at the University of Virginia, where he was a three-time All-American, reached the NCAA singles final and graduated with a double major in finance and business management. During his seven-year pro career, he reached a career-high ranking of World No. 64 and earned victories over his childhood hero Michael Chang and former World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero.
But Vahaly has perhaps made the biggest impact off the court. In 2017, a decade after retiring due to a rotator cuff injury, he became the first current or former ATP Tour player to come out as gay. Last November, he was elected for a two-year term as the chairman of the board and president of the United States Tennis Association, joining Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova as highly visible LGBTQ sports figures.
A self-described "very private person," Vahaly said he had made peace with the fact that he was never going to come out publicly, despite being open about his sexuality with his family and friends. But six months after he and his partner, Bill Jones, became parents to twin boys via surrogacy, Vahaly had a change of heart.
"You're just looking at them and thinking about the life you want to build for them, and your priorities shift. It's not about you anymore," Vahaly, 46, told NBC News. "Suddenly, I felt this overwhelming sense of responsibility not only to my kids, but almost to the younger version of myself who had nobody to look to and often felt lonely and isolated."
Brian Vahaly serves to Arnaud Clement of France during the U.S. Open on Aug. 25, 2003, in Flushing, N.Y. (Nick Laham / Getty Images file)
Vahaly said he knew that coming out on a Sports Illustrated podcast would elicit a strong reaction from a sporting community that has the reputation of being largely white, straight and conservative. While his announcement was met with some support — multiple top players, including Roger Federer, said an openly queer player would be "totally accepted" in the men's locker room — Vahaly recalled receiving thousands of hateful messages about his young family.
"There was a lot of feedback I received about raising kids into this world, having kids without a mother," Vahaly said. "I was disappointed to receive all of that, but I was very well-prepared."
Reaching that place of self-acceptance was a lengthy process for Vahaly, who had developed a knack for compartmentalization as a pro athlete. "Unfortunately, what was a great tennis asset was not a great personal-life asset. As feelings hit my mind, anything that felt not beneficial to my career was quickly compartmentalized and pushed to the side," he said. As a result, he said, he can't quite pinpoint when he realized he was gay.
Having grown up in a religious and conservative household in New Jersey and then having immersed himself in a locker room culture where homophobic remarks were a common way "to build camaraderie," Vahaly admitted that he had developed a lot of internalized homophobia. "Back in those days, if I thought about a gay bar and what it meant to be gay, and I would see those people publicly, I thought to myself, 'That is not me. I have nothing in common with that group.'"
It wasn't until his mid-20s that Vahaly, with the help of his longtime sports psychologist, began to come to terms with his sexuality. Part of that emotional work included unpacking his experience of undergoing so-called conversion therapy at a church, where he was told repeatedly that his attraction to men was a kind of "horrible defect" that could be cured by God. In retrospect, Vahaly said, he wasted years trying to change an immutable part of himself.
Brian Vahaly of the U.S. reacts to a point over Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain during the Pacific Life Open in 2003 in Indian Wells, Calif. (Al Bello / Getty Images file)
In his second act, Vahaly has held senior executive positions at Washington, D.C.-based venture capital and investment management firms. But about five years after stepping away from tennis, he was asked to serve on the USTA's board. "As I was learning who I was, I didn't feel like tennis was a safe space for me, so I said no. Fortunately, the guy who was recruiting me knew me quite well and knew how to tap into my competitive side," Vahaly recalled with a laugh.
"When you don't see people before you as a potential role model, it's hard to know, as a gay athlete and man, whether the organization — or a sport more broadly — would be comfortable with you in a leadership position," he added. "When I came on, I was very guarded. Most board members for me were significantly older, often talking to me about their daughters. I just played it quiet and focused on where I thought I could make an impact, which was really on the player development side of the house."
Women's tennis has historically had many openly gay players — including King, Navratilova and most recently Russian-born Australian Daria Kasatkina. But only one men's player has followed in Vahaly's footsteps: Brazil's Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, who reached a career high of No. 234 last month.
While there is now greater cultural acceptance of the LGBTQ community, Vahaly pointed out there are still a number of factors preventing male players — like his younger self — from wanting to come out, including the potential financial fallout from sponsors and the reality that the tour still travels to countries where being gay is neither legal nor accepted.
"The new generation thinks about inclusion and about being themselves so differently than my generation, so I'm hopeful that [homophobic] language starts to fall away a little bit, that people in our community feel accepted into sport," he said. "Once we start to build the numbers, you'll start to see those athletes making it up to the pro tour."
Now, as an LGBTQ leader in sports, Vahaly still faces some casual homophobia. "There are still rooms where my profile is shared, but they leave out the fact that I'm gay or I'm a dad," he said. But, "sometimes, shouting from the rooftops your beliefs or being really firm and in your face is not the right approach."
"Those are tough rooms, sometimes, when people aren't used to seeing a gay family, but I think humanizing people in our community is actually what drives us forward," he continued. "I'm not trying to push something down anybody's throat. I'm simply trying to show how and why we're actually not that different. I think that allows the space for people to be open to diversity and inclusion."
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and rolled back legal protections for LGBTQ people, particularly those who are transgender. In response to the current political climate, Vahaly said he is "less" focused on "what's happening around us" and more focused on how he can use the U.S. Open to amplify the work of LGBTQ organizations such as The Trevor Project, Athlete Ally, You Can Play and the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance. (The Grand Slam will host its fifth annual Open Pride day on Aug. 28.)
"I think about what I can do and what I can control," Vahaly said. "What I can do is be honest about myself and take part in interviews like this to continue to show and demonstrate to the world the diversity that exists within our sport and that they should feel welcome. I want people to know and see that this is a safe place for them."
Source: "AOL AOL Sports"
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