Instagram<\/a>. \u201cAs a professional tennis player, I\u2019ve spent countless hours working on my game, my body, and my mindset.<\/p>\n\u201cThrough all of this, one of the most important things I\u2019ve learned is that success on the court isn\u2019t just about physical skill – it\u2019s about discovering your personality and staying true to yourself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot about how to talk about this. And while it hasn\u2019t always been easy, hiding it and pretending to be someone I\u2019m not was never an option. That\u2019s why I feel it\u2019s time for me to open up and share with you that I\u2019m gay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunold is currently ranked at No. 307 in the world after climbing to a career-high of No. 289 in August. He has won just over \u00a391,500 during his career, with just under \u00a340,000 of that prize money arriving this year.<\/p>\n
And the tennis ace added: \u201cBeing gay doesn\u2019t mean loving the same gender – it also means dealing with things most people never have to think about. The fear of not being accepted, the pressure to stay quiet, the feeling of being different. But I\u2019ve grown. And I\u2019m proud of who I am today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sharing this with you to take a step for myself, but also because I think it\u2019s not talked about enough in sports. I believe that in an ideal world, we wouldn\u2019t even need to \u2018come out\u2019 at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m deeply grateful for everyone who supported me. Without you, I would never be the person I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis star Mika Brunold has come out as gay in an emotional statement on social media. The 21-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[21198,94816,4136,164858,99,16329,428,9519],"class_list":{"0":"post-322530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp-tour","9":"tag-gay","10":"tag-instagram","11":"tag-mika-brunold","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-statement","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-tennis-section"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}