STOSUR Samantha

General
COMING OUT
In 2019 she chose to reveal that she is gay in a post on social media. She says she was motivated to reveal her sexuality after accepting the 2019 Spirit of Tennis Award from Tennis Australia. "I accepted that award [Spirit of Tennis Award] and kind of got up there and made my speech and as I was like, 'No, I can't do it, no, I can't do it'. Once I stepped off stage, I was like, 'What are you doing? You've just accepted this award, thanked all these people and the person who really is with you every single day, the person you have the most candid and open discussions with, who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you can't mention them on stage?' I was like, 'Nah, that's ridiculous now. I don't want to do that anymore'. We were walking back to the car to come home and I said, 'I want to do this', and I think I hit send [on the Instagram post] at 03:00 or something. It actually felt so good just to open up that little bit more and have that truth of my relationship with her [partner Liz] out there and just to finally say thank you to her." (wwos.nine.com.au, 06 Apr 2021)

MOTHERHOOD
In June 2020 her partner Liz gave birth to their first child Genevieve. She says she hopes continuing her tennis career as a mother will allow her to enjoy the sport more. "Many players have done this same thing and I think the resounding comment is, 'I actually played better and I enjoy it', and you come off the court and you don't worry about whether that was a bad loss, or whatever happened on court. You go out there and all that matters is being with them. I think that's certainly going to be the case for me. I'm actually looking forward to that prospect and being able to play, do my job, come home or if we're on the road travelling, and enjoy those moments with her because I think that's something that's going to be very special." (dailymail.co.uk, 26 Jul 2020; au.sports.yahoo.com, 26 May 2021)

She became the first Australian female tennis player to win a singles Grand Slam title since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980, when she defeated Serena Williams to claim the 2011 US Open title. (nytimes.com, 11 Sep 2011; SportsDeskOnline, 02 Jul 2021)