USTA president Brian Vahaly says he wants tennis to be a ‘safe space’ for queer people as U.S. Open approaches

As this year’s U.S. Open kicks off, USTA President Brian Vahaly, a former top-100 player, opens up about his coming-out journey and his approach to being an LGBTQ leader in sports.

Brian Vahaly doesn’t know his life without tennis. After first picking up a racket at the age of 2, Vahaly was a star athlete from 1997 to 2001 at the University of Virginia, where he was a three-time All-American, reached the NCAA singles final and graduated with a double major in finance and business management. During his seven-year pro career, he reached a career-high ranking of World No. 64 and earned victories over his childhood hero Michael Chang and former World No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero.

But Vahaly has perhaps made the biggest impact off the court. In 2017, a decade after retiring due to a rotator cuff injury, he became the first current or former ATP Tour player to come out as gay. Last November, he was elected for a two-year term as the chairman of the board and president of the United States Tennis Association, joining Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova as highly visible LGBTQ sports figures.

A self-described “very private person,” Vahaly said he had made peace with the fact that he was never going to come out publicly, despite being open about his sexuality with his family and friends. But six months after he and his partner, Bill Jones, became parents to twin boys via surrogacy, Vahaly had a change of heart.

“You’re just looking at them and thinking about the life you want to build for them, and your priorities shift. It’s not about you anymore,” Vahaly, 46, told NBC News. “Suddenly, I felt this overwhelming sense of responsibility not only to my kids, but almost to the younger version of myself who had nobody to look to and often felt lonely and isolated.”