5 incredibly successful tennis players who happen to be homosexual

2. Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King

“The greatest competitor I’ve ever known” - Margaret Court on Billie Jean King

Country: United States of America

Duration: Late 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, early 1980s

Grand Slams: 39

A true innovator, Billie Jean King started a new era in world tennis by founding the Women’s Tennis Association, the Women’s Sports Foundation, and the World Team Tennis. Having won 39 Grand Slams titles in total (12 singles, 16 women’s doubles and 11 mixed doubles titles), her win-loss record is >80% in all types of competitions - including the Grand Slams.

King has always been an advocate for sexual equality, and she even won "The Battle of the Sexes" tennis match in 1973. She first got married to Larry King, but their relationship grew increasingly distant as her career blossomed. In the late 1960s King began to have relationships with women.

She kept her attraction towards and relationships with women hidden for long. In 1981, she reluctantly came out as lesbian when Marilyn Barnett (an ex-lover and personal secretary) filed a very public palimony suit.

Although King admitted the affair to the world, she called it a "mistake" and refused to acknowledge that she was a lesbian.

She admitted later that the main reason she didn’t come out publicly was the fear of losing her sponsors. But Barnett's lawsuit weakened her financial status anyway, with several of her sponsors withdrawing their support.

Later King claimed that coming out publicly as a lesbian was her "longest, hardest journey". Today, she is an international leader in seeking recognition and equal rights for gays and lesbians.