{"id":820132,"date":"2026-07-23T04:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/820132\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T04:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:43:11","slug":"tennis-news-2026-wta-introduces-gender-testing-rennae-stubbs-comments-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/820132\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis news 2026: WTA introduces gender testing, Rennae Stubbs comments, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis<\/a> legend Rennae Stubbs has fired up over the Women\u2019s Tennis Association<\/a>\u2019s controversial decision to mandate sex testing.<\/p>\n

The WTA this week updated its eligibility policy<\/a> to include gender screening \u201cbased on biological sex\u201d to \u201cpreserve the integrity of women\u2019s professional tennis and maintain fair competition conditions for all players\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Rennae<\/p>\n

Rennae Stubbs has fired up over new gender testing for female tennis players.\u00a0Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The policy brings the organisation into line with that of the International Olympic Committee<\/a>, which announced its own changes in March<\/a> following US President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s executive order on sports ahead of Los Angeles 2028<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are currently no known transgender athletes playing on the WTA tour. Renee Richards, who played in the 1970s, is the only openly trans person to ever play top-level tennis.<\/p>\n

The decision to introduce the testing was praised by legend Martina Navratilova<\/a>, who ironically was coached by Richards for several years in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

Speaking on her own Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast, the 55-year-old questioned why the WTA decided to \u201cthrow this spanner in the works\u201d at a time the women\u2019s side of the sport was struggling to attract sponsors, and when viewership numbers outside the slams is declining.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe WTA is already in all kinds of problems financially, among other things \u2026 it makes no sense to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Renee Richards) said she doesn\u2019t think that there should be transgender players in the professional realm, but there aren\u2019t any. So why is this a problem?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for such a small percentage of people in the world that identify themselves as trans \u2026 I don\u2019t see it as a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my biggest thing … no man is deciding at 18 or 20 years of age, \u2018you know what? I think I can win Wimbledon<\/a> if I just become a woman. I\u2019m just going to start taking estrogen and do all these things to get myself a Wimbledon title\u2019. It just doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re taking away such a small, tiny, minute section of the world to make a point right now? Why? What has happened to make the WTA decide that this is the agenda they want to pick up and run with in the middle of the year?\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, the Saudi PIF announced it would end its funding of the WTA Finals following this year\u2019s event in November. Stubbs said the organisation should be more focused on finding a replacement source of sponsorship, or the dwindling TV numbers, rather than engage in a \u201clightning rod conversation\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so baffling that they would even do this. Why rock a boat that\u2019s not sinking at this point (when) the thing that might be sinking is the WTA financials in general. Why aren\u2019t you going out and seeking sponsorship deals?<\/p>\n

\u201c(Women\u2019s tennis is) falling behind the WNBA, the PWHL (women\u2019s pro ice hockey league), the NWSL (women\u2019s professional soccer league) \u2026 but here we are going after a social conversation that is so stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players are to be tested for the SRY gene, a DNA segment found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero. The test can either be carried out via a saliva swab taken from the cheek, or a blood sample. Players will only need to do the test once in their life.<\/p>\n

The screening is already undertaken by governing bodies within\u00a0track and field<\/a>,\u00a0skiing<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0boxing<\/a>. It has been criticised by human rights experts and activist groups.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Renee Richards – the only openly trans player to ever play top-level tennis – in 1976.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Stubbs revealed she\u2019d had to undergo sex testing to be eligible to play in her first Olympics<\/a> at Atlanta 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually got given a card to basically say: \u2018Oh, yeah, you\u2019re a woman, you have the genes of a female, therefore you can participate\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I did it, I was like, \u2018this is weird, seriously?\u2019 I thought it was such an invasion of my own privacy back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy the WTA needs to venture into this category of controversy is just bizarre to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian tennis legend Rennae Stubbs has fired up over the Women\u2019s Tennis Association\u2019s controversial decision to mandate sex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-820132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}