#1 Male Tennis Pro Taylor Fritz: Gay Players 'Would be Totally Normal'
Taylor Fritz, ranked as the "No. 1 American player," opened up in an interview about the lack of out tennis players, saying he (and most others) would be fine with them, Reuters reported.
"While leading players past and present on the WTA Tour have come out as gay, no male player competing at the sport's top level has done the same so far," Reuters noted.
Fritz, 25, made his comments on gay pro players when asked about it by tennis publication Clay. The publication said that gay male players are "perhaps the biggest taboo in tennis," but Fritz didn't go with the flow on that one.
"It's strange [that no top player has come out]," the publication quoted him as saying, "because I think it would be accepted. No one on the tour would have a problem with that."
Fritz noted that "Statistically speaking," gay players "should be" among the Top 100 male players of the sport. "Statistically," he reiterated, having cautioned that he was "not sure if there are homosexual tennis players in the top 100."
Fritz went on to add, "I think 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."
Searching for a good reason for why there are no out active players, Fritz speculated that a pro coming out "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."
The youthful champion is likely not wrong about that. The mere hint of a big-name tennis pro possibly coming out was enough to make headlines earlier this month when a top French player, Fabien Reboul, set hearts aflutter by posting a pair of photos of himself and another French player, Maxence Broville, at Instagram.
In one pic, the two — dressed identically in the clothing of Slade Toulousain, the tennis club to which they both belong — gaze into one another's eyes. In the other, the two share a passionate kiss. Or do they? Some online commentators noted that their lips do not seem to be meeting, and suggested that the post was nothing more than a joke.
Nothing more about that purported romance has emerged, and nothing has been confirmed about the two men being in a relationship, which could in itself be a signal that the post was a jape.
Fritz's comments on the subject were a brief departure from the main substance of the interview, in which he discussed playing against the "big three," his defeat in Wimbledon, and why he thinks putting on a show of smashing tennis rackets makes for a more attractive sport when it comes to the younger set.