World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka shared her opinion on transgender athletes in women’s tennis in a sit-down interview with Piers Morgan.
She believes it’s unfair for women to face biological men in professional tennis.
“But I feel like they still have a huge advantage over the women, and I think it’s not fair to women to face basically biological men.
“It’s not fair. The woman has been working her whole life to reach her limit, and then she has to face a man who is biologically much stronger, so for me, I don’t agree with this kind of stuff in sport.”
The WTA Tour Gender Participation Policy does allow transgender women to take part in tennis tournaments if they have declared their gender as female for a minimum of four years. They also have to agree to testing procedures after having lowered testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L(nanomoles per litre) for two years.
The first transgender to ever participate in professional tennis is Ranee Richards from 1977 to 1981. Richards also coached tennis legend and gay rights trailblazer Martina Navratilova.
The 18-time Grand Slam singles champion has been vocal about the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sport.
Sabalenka was also asked about Marta Kostyuk comment that she was at a disadvantage against players like Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek due to them having a high level of testosterone than her .
She replied, “It’s actually quite funny, because she [Kostyuk] is a strong girl, and she probably has more muscles than I do and she looks fit and strong, and I think that [a difference in testosterone levels] is not the case in all the matches she lost against top players.”
