British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

One thing some folks may find interesting from a human interest perspective. Greg Slade is our #2 Quad mens player, behind Andy Lapthorne. Greg has variously been just in our out of the top 10 over the past 12 months and will be playing in next week Wheelchair Tour Finals Doubles in Barcelona (sadly, missed out on singles qualification).

Greg has been openly gay around the tour for some time but only came out to the wider public at the start of the year, at the AO, and his story hit the press around that time and I saw it come up again this weekend. This was the original article

www.skysports.com/tennis/news/13500500/greg-slade-hopes-to-inspire-other-gay-men-after-positive-response-to-coming-out

It made me think - Greg said he got a very strong positive reaction from the tennis world, which is great. But it still seems to be a big thing/stigma in the mens game with very few men's players coming out and none that I can think of that are playing currently - Jan Michael Gambill and Brian Vahaly are two recent gay men players but not current (there is a Brazilian player, Silva, but he isn't on the main ATP tour).

Which feels sad in this day and age and presumably says something about the mens game in a wider sense.