One gene now decides who plays on the WTA Tour
A cotton swab rubbed against the inside of a cheek. That is what stands between a player and a spot on the women’s professional circuit from now on. A blood draw if the lab needs one, but usually just saliva, sent off to look for a single gene. SRY, the gene that in most mammals switches on male sex development. Since July 1 it has been written into the rulebook of women’s pro tennis.
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Months of quiet buildup, then a sudden reveal
The news slipped out on a Sunday, first reported by the US outlet Bounces before the WTA put it in writing on its own site. Gone are the testosterone thresholds that governed eligibility until now. In their place sits genetic screening. Anyone who wants to walk on to a tour court must show, once, that she does not carry the gene.
The calendar tells its own story. Back on March 26, roughly three months earlier, the IOC had rolled out a comparable rule for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. There is history folded into that decision. Olympic sport ran chromosome checks from 1968 through 1996, then abandoned them after scientists pushed back hard. Almost three decades on, they have returned.
What the rule actually asks of players
The WTA has chosen its wording with obvious care. The policy, it insists, is not there to disrespect anyone’s gender identity or to put a player’s dignity on trial. The goal it names is competitive fairness, nothing beyond that.
The mechanics are simple enough. A negative result and the player carries on, no follow-up. If SRY turns up, she is held out for the time being while doctors take a closer look. There is a way through: a player can establish that she has complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, or a related difference of sex development, showing that male puberty never took hold in her body.
Every player faces the test a single time in her career, minors included. The WTA foots the bill and promises the results stay confidential. Rollout is set for August, probably around the Washington or Toronto events, with one firm line in the sand. It all has to be finished before the Los Angeles Games.
A large question mark hangs over the majors. The Grand Slams answer to World Tennis rather than the WTA, and nobody yet knows whether they will fall in line. Roland-Garros has stayed silent on requests for comment.
Tennis has walked this road before
This is not new ground for the sport. In the 1970s, the American Renee Richards went to court and won the right to play the women’s circuit, reaching the US Open mixed doubles final in 1977. Years later Sarah Gronert, a German player born intersex, had to go through surgery and testing before she could compete, climbing as high as 164th in the world.
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Predictably, it was Martina Navratilova who made the loudest noise. With accusations of transphobia piling up across social media, the winner of 18 Grand Slam titles answered on X. She said she was “very happy” that the WTA had spelled out that only biological women belong at the top of the women’s game.
She went further. A cheek swab is not transphobic, she argued, recalling that she had taken exactly that kind of test through the 1970s and 1980s, as every player around her did. Her closing line carried no cushioning: “There is no reason to have male bodies in women’s sport.”
Out of Montreal came a softer register. Tournament director Valerie Tetreault admitted the subject “is generating a lot of ink” and that little about it reads as “black or white.” Squaring access with fairness, she said, keeps shifting under everyone’s feet.
Sabalenka had already staked out her position back in December, telling Piers Morgan it was “not fair” to send women out against opponents who are biologically stronger.
So it comes down to a swab of saliva. And underneath that small thing, a whole sport is busy redrawing where its lines fall.
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