The LGBTQ+ tennis players who have served at Wimbledon
Some of the LGBTQ+ players who have taken to the Wimbledon court. (Robert Prange/Zhe Ji/Getty)
The 2026 Wimbledon Championship is set to kick off this month. Funnily enough, the tennis tournament has a wide-ranging history of LGBTQ+ athletes competing.
The 139th edition of Wimbledon begins on Monday, 29 June. Here are some LGBTQ+ tennis players who have served at Wimbledon…
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King is perhaps the most famous out tennis player. She has won a record 20 career titles at Wimbledon – six in singles, 10 in women’s doubles, and four in mixed doubles.
The tennis star was married to fellow tennis player Larry King for over two decades and was publicly outed in 1981 when Marilyn Barnett, a woman with whom she had been involved while still married, filed a palimony lawsuit against her. King refused to return to the closet and has since remained a proud and legendary advocate for equality.
She has repeatedly used her voice for the LGBTQ+ community, from calling out Ron DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law to urging people to listen to trans athletes. In 2020, King was among more than 170 current and former athletes in women’s sports who signed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of trans girls and women playing sports.
Daria Kasatkina
In 2022, Daria Kasatkina came out as a lesbian. In October of the same year, she ranked eighth worldwide in women’s singles.
The Russian-born Australian player was the highest-ranked openly gay player on the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) tour, as of last year. Furthermore, Kasatkina’s best Wimbledon performance was reaching the 2018 quarterfinals.
Now playing for Australia, Kasatkina has previously said it was “not possible” for her to return to her homeland. She now splits her time between Spain and Dubai.
Soon after she came out, she announced her relationship with figure skater Natalia Zabiiako. Zabiiako and Kasatkina announced their engagement in June 2025. The pair also run a YouTube vlog channel together about their relationship and life on the tennis circuit.
Greet Minnen and Alison Van Uytvanck
Belgian duo Greet Minnen and Alison Van Uytvanck made gay history at Wimbledon in 2019. They became the first same-sex couple to compete in a doubles match together at Wimbledon.
The pair met and fell in love as teenagers, revealing their relationship when they kissed after Van Uytvanck won a match at Wimbledon in 2018. “We had so many people following us and retweeting this kiss and everything,” Minnen shared about the kiss. “For us it was a really big surprise. We didn’t even know there was a picture from it.”
The couple even competed against each other at a doubles tournament during a World Tennis Association (WTA) Tour event in Karlsruhe in 2019. In a sweet moment after the game, Minnen and Alison Van Uytvanck kissed at the tennis net.
The pair got engaged, but their relationship ended in late 2021. Both women are now married to other people.
Gottfried von Cramm
Gottfried von Cramm, a legendary German tennis player who reached world number one in 1937, was the men’s singles runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships for three years straight. He lost to Fred Perry in 1935 and 1936, then to American Don Budge the following year. Though he won the Wimbledon mixed doubles title with German-Danish star Hilde Krahwinkel in 1933.
Homosexuality was illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the criminal code, so von Cramm had to hide his sexuality.
Having been arrested, and despite being married to Baroness Elisabeth Lisa von Dobeneck at the time, he admitted having a three-year relationship with Manasse Herbst, a male Jewish actor and opera singer in his twenties.
Martina Navratilova
Eighteen-time Grand Slam singles champion Martina Navratilova is another out gay player who has competed on the courts of Wimbledon. Additionally, her nine Wimbledon singles titles are an all-time record.
Navratilova came out as bisexual in 1981 during an interview with New York Daily News, revealing she was in a relationship with feminist writer Rita Mae Brown. She asked the publication not to publish the interview until she came out publicly, but the New York Daily News went ahead and published it anyway. Navratilova later came out as a lesbian.
However, her views on trans women competing in elite sporting categories have been routinely criticised. She claimed it is a form of “cheating” for trans women to compete in women’s sports in 2019, several groups said they were “devastated” to hear of the athletes’ views.
Mika Brunold
Like many sports, the number of out women athletes is significantly higher than in the men’s game. The 21-year-old Swiss player Mika Brunold became the second male tennis player to openly come out as gay while competing as an active player in the sport.
Simultaneously, Brunold became the highest-ranked active openly gay male player and showcased his talent at the Wimbledon qualifying rounds. He has a career-high ATP singles ranking of world number. 289.
Brunold came out in 2025 in an Instagram post. “I feel it’s time for me to open up and share with you that I’m gay,” he wrote. “I’m sharing this with you to take a step for myself, but also because I think it’s not talked about enough in sports.”
Nadia Podoroska
Argentine tennis star Nadia Podoroska came out publicly in 2022. Podoroska is a regular in the Wimbledon singles draws and competed for Argentina at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
The former French Open semi-finalist, who has been ranked as high as number 36 in the world, confirmed her relationship with fellow Argentinian tennis player Guillermina Naya. Shared on Naya’s 26th birthday, Podoroska’s post consisted of images of the couple hugging and kissing, with the caption: “Today I celebrate you from afar, but I feel you by my side every day of my life.”
Her Wimbledon statistics are strong, having got through the second round in 2021 and 2023. Furthermore, she has a career-high WTA singles ranking of number 36.
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