Brazilian Joao Lucas Reis, ranked 401st in the world and the 11th-best tennis player in Brazil, publicly came out as gay. He is the first active male professional tennis player to openly acknowledge his homosexuality.
He made the announcement by posting photos with his boyfriend on his Instagram account. “Happy birthday. Happy life. I love you so much,” Reis wrote in a dedication to his partner, actor and model Gui Sampaio Ricardo. The 24-year-old tennis player, formerly ranked 259th in the world, will compete this week in the Procopio Cup, a tournament that gives the champion a wild card for the ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro’s qualifying event.
Homosexuality has long been a major taboo in men’s tennis. Reis has dared to break a historic silence, possibly paving the way for other players to live their sexual orientation freely and without fear of public judgment.
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Among women, several lesbians have fought for the rights of sexual minorities. Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova were pioneers in the 1970s and helped normalize same-sex love; Amélie Mauresmo publicly addressed her sexual orientation after reaching the Australian Open final when she was only 19 years old; Daria Kasatkina came out as a lesbian despite coming from Russia, where the LGBTQ+ movement is considered extremist.
“I think it’s odd (that there haven’t been openly gay male tennis players) because I feel a player would be accepted,” said Taylor Fritz in an interview with CLAY two years ago. The current world number 4 tried to understand why no male player had ever come out: “It would be big news, and maybe people don’t want to be the center of attention, maybe they don’t want the distraction of being in the spotlight.”
North American Brian Vahaly, who was ranked 64th in the ATP in 2003, did come out as gay, but a decade after retiring. “While I played, I heard homophobia all the time, it was part of the culture,” he told The Telegraph in 2017.
Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas believes fear has dominated those who remain in the closet: “Maybe there’s still a bit of fear. Maybe there are players who are gay and are afraid, living repressed, and it’s terrible for a person to live like that.”
Argentine Nadia Podoroska, who, along with her partner Guillermina Naya, spoke about their relationship in an interview with CLAY, said that what had been happening in the men’s tour—until Reis broke the trend—seemed “strange” to her.
“To be honest, it seems strange to me that no one has said it publicly, but I also fully respect that someone chooses to keep their privacy and doesn’t have the obligation or need to say it,” Podoroska said.
Thus, Varillas’ theory—fear—holds true.
“Tennis is a very masculine sport, very macho. But that’s old-fashioned. I think when there are more cases, people will gain courage, they will open up, they’ll see that there’s no problem, and it will become normalized.”
As of December 2024, Joao Reis has already taken the first step towards normalizing homosexuality in professional men’s tennis.
