ATP Tennis star Joao Lucas Reis da Silva spoke with The New York Times’ The Athletic to talk about making history in the world of tennis after greeting his partner a simple happy birthday.
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The athlete unexpectedly became a popular hit online after posting a carousel of photos of him and his partner celebrating the latter’s birthday in Rio De Janeiro, captioning the post:
“Happy birthday!
Happy life!
I love you so much!”
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He told The Athletic just hours after winning his first championship against Daniel Dutra da Silva and claiming the Procopio Cup, which earned him a spot in the qualifying rounds of the Rio Open, an ATP 500 event.
“I didn’t think about it…I just wanted to post a picture with him”
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The Brazilian player’s win comes at a very happy moment in his life after just celebrating his boyfriend’s birthday–and yes, he just confirmed it:
“I didn’t feel pressure. I was happy. I had my boyfriend here with me. He was supporting me. My whole team was here.”
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So now that their relationship is happily out in the open, it can be said officially that Joao is the first active openly gay male professional tennis player in ATP history. Hopefully, this encourages and inspires many more athletes of the LGBTQ+ community, at their own pace, to come out and to be able to love freely and wonderfully.
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Source: The New York Times