{"id":813277,"date":"2026-07-21T00:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813277\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T00:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:30:11","slug":"tennis-news-2026-wta-introduces-gene-testing-martina-navratilova-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813277\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis news 2026: WTA introduces gene testing; Martina Navratilova comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Women\u2019s Tennis Association<\/a> is introducing one-off mandatory gene-testing for all players effective from Tuesday \u2013 a requirement to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WTA updated its women\u2019s eligibility policy to include gender screening \u201cbased on biological sex\u201d this week \u201cto preserve the integrity of women\u2019s professional tennis and maintain fair competition conditions for all players.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Players<\/p>\n

Players will undergo a one-time cheek swab for the test.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The new policy takes the organisation in line with the eligibility policy introduced by the International Olympic Committee<\/a> in March to align with US President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Games.<\/p>\n

The WTA is complying with what is effectively an order from the IOC that Olympic sports bodies are following, though it remained unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at Games level.<\/p>\n

Players are to be tested for the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this policy, \u2018biological male\u2019 means an individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, has an SRY gene and therefore has or previously had testes or streak testes; and \u2018biological female\u2019 means an individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, has no SRY gene and therefore has or previously had ovaries or streak ovaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WTA said the policy distinguishes between biological sex and gender identity, and that there is \u201cno intent to disrespect or question the gender identity or the dignity of any person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mandatory gender screening \u2014 already conducted by the governing bodies of track and field<\/a>, skiing<\/a> and boxing<\/a> \u2014 has been criticised by human rights experts and activist groups.<\/p>\n

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova\u00a0praised the WTA\u2019s decision as a\u00a0\u201cstep in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI played no part in this particular policy, but am very happy that we at the WTA are clear that we are a women\u2019s association and only women, as in females, can compete at the highest level of women\u2019s tennis,\u201d she wrote on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Women\u2019s Tennis Association is introducing one-off mandatory gene-testing for all players effective from Tuesday \u2013 a requirement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-813277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}