Written by Richard Pagliaro | @Itenisi_Manje | Thursday, December 12, 2024
Photo credit: Corleve/Mark Peterson
The LTA aims to promote inclusion—and eliminate inequality—in competitive tennis.
To that end, the LTA has announced that it is banning transgender female tennis players and padel players from playing in national and regional tournaments.
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The British tennis governing body said the new rule will come into force on January 25, 2025 and is designed to create fair competition.
“It is clear that tennis and padel are gender-biased sports – the average man has an advantage when playing against the average woman,” the LTA said in a statement. “This includes longer levers to reach and hit the ball and increased cardio-vascular capacity means being able to move around the field with ease.
“The current broad consensus, including the conclusion of the review carried out by the Sports Councils Equality Group, is that this advantage may be maintained at a significant level for transgender women, making the competition unfair. Therefore, we have decided to draw a line in the structure of competition to create two different terms of competition for the purposes of the Policy: Specific And not specified.”
The ban on transgender women only applies to British domestic tennis tournaments regulated by the LTA.
This law is changing not operate international tennis and padel tournaments played in the UK, including Wimbledon, Queen’s Club, Eastbourne, Nottingham, Billie Jean King Cup and Challengers. The LTA has the authority to impose domestic rule changes, but does not control international competitions.
“As the national governing body (NGB) of tennis and padel, the LTA has had to balance two potentially conflicting responsibilities,” the LTA statement said. “There is a responsibility to ensure that competition in our sport is fair and a responsibility to ensure that tennis is welcoming and inclusive.
“In order to do this, we have considered the available evidence, especially looking at the work done by the Sports Councils Equality Group, and listening to those directly involved.
“The policy tries to balance these two responsibilities appropriately but knowing that different people will have different views about where that balance should lie.”
