Rising Swiss tennis star Mika Brunold has become just the second male tennis player to openly come out as gay while competing as an active player in the sport.<\/p>\n
Brunold, 21, revealed in an Instagram statement on Saturday that he was a member of the LGBT+ community, revealing that he was \u201cproud of who I am\u201d in a powerful message.<\/p>\n
The Swiss follows in the footsteps of Joao Lucas Reis Da Silva, the Brazilian star who became the ATP Tour\u2019s<\/a> firstly openly gay active player last year, after opening up about his relationship with his boyfriend.<\/p>\n Currently ranked 307th in the ATP Tour rankings, Brunold reached a career-high of 289th in August 2025.<\/p>\n The Swiss reached the semi-final of two ATP Tour Challenger events in 2025 and was also handed a wildcard into qualifying at the Swiss Indoors in Basel this October, pushing then-world No 62 Reilly Opelka all the way in a tight three-set loss.<\/p>\n In the statement revealed on his Instagram on Saturday, Brunold revealed that he felt it was \u201ctime\u201d for him to speak openly and honestly about his sexuality.<\/p>\n He wrote: \u201cHeyy.<\/p>\n \u201cToday I want to share something personal with you<\/p>\n \u201cAs a professional tennis player, I\u2019ve spent countless hours working on my game, my body, and my mindset. Through all of this, one of the most important things I\u2019ve learned is that success on the court isn\u2019t just about physical skill \u2014 it\u2019s about discovering your personality and staying true to yourself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot about how to talk about this. And while it hasn\u2019t always been easy, hiding it and pretending to be someone I\u2019m not was never an option.<\/p>\n Which active WTA players have earned the most prize money? Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff star<\/a><\/p>\n Tennis star ignores pleas to withdraw from Russia event as he joins girlfriend in field<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why I feel it\u2019s time for me to open up and share with you that I\u2019m gay.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing gay doesn\u2019t mean loving the same gender \u2013 it also means dealing with things most people never have to think about. The fear of not being accepted, the pressure to stay quiet, the feeling of being different. But I\u2019ve grown. And I\u2019m proud of who I am today.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sharing this with you to take a step for myself, but also because I think it\u2019s not talked about enough in sports. I believe that in an ideal world, we wouldn\u2019t even need to \u2018come out\u2019 at all.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m deeply grateful for everyone who supported me. Without you, I would never be the person I am today.<\/p>\n \u201cMika.\u201d<\/p>\n Brunold has received a wave of support in the comment section of his Instagram post, with four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No 1 Kim Clijsters commenting, alongside the likes of Eva Lys, Viktorija Golubic, and Leandro Riedi.<\/p>\n A post shared by (@mika_brunold)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Read Next<\/strong>: What win rate did Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic & other ATP stars have in 2025?<\/a><\/p>\n The post Rising tennis star becomes second openly LGBT+ player competing on ATP Tour<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rising Swiss tennis star Mika Brunold has become just the second male tennis player to openly come out as gay while competing as an active player in the sport. Brunold, 21, revealed in an Instagram statement on Saturday that he was a member of the LGBT+ community, revealing that he was \u201cproud of who I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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