Jessica Pegula Confirms the WTA’s New Genetic Sex Testing Has Begun at the Cincinnati Open
- July 19, 2026 the date the WTA quietly posted its updated Women's Eligibility Policy — no press release — Ben Rothenberg / Bounces
- July 21, 2026 the date the new SRY gene-testing standard took effect across every WTA tournament — WTA Women's Eligibility Policy
- 4 Grand Slam tournaments now covered by the WTA's one-time genetic screening requirement — WTA Women's Eligibility Policy
- Zero known transgender women competing in professional tennis at the time the policy was adopted — Sports Illustrated
On August 12, 2026, at the Cincinnati Open, World No. 3 Jessica Pegula confirmed to Front Office Sports what she had predicted six days earlier in Canada: genetic sex testing under the WTA’s new Women’s Eligibility Policy had begun. “I know some of the testing has started this week,” she said. “And so far, I’ve heard it’s been very easy, it’s been very simple, no complaints.”
The policy itself had already been in effect for three weeks by then, but almost nobody outside the sport had noticed. On July 19, 2026, the WTA quietly posted an updated eligibility policy to its website — no press release, no advance notice to the players’ association. Tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg was first to report it, on his Substack newsletter, Bounces. Two days later, on July 21, the policy took effect at every WTA tournament, including all four Grand Slams.
What follows is what the policy actually requires, what players on tour are saying about it, and how it compares to the rulebook still in force at the sport’s other governing body — the International Tennis Federation — which has not adopted the same standard.
The new Women’s Eligibility Policy replaces one the WTA adopted on October 18, 2024, which allowed transgender women to compete in the women’s category if their testosterone levels stayed below 2.5 nmol/L for two continuous years. That policy is gone. In its place is a one-time genetic screening requirement built around the SRY gene, a Y-chromosome marker tied to male-typical sex development.
The WTA has framed the change as a matter of competitive integrity rather than a response to any specific case. Its stated purpose is “to preserve the integrity of women’s professional tennis and maintain fair competition conditions for all players,” with “no intent to disrespect or question the gender identity or the dignity of any person.” Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim noted there was no mention of an inciting event behind the change, and no known transgender women currently compete in professional tennis.
The timing lines up with a broader shift across international sport rather than anything specific to tennis. The International Olympic Committee adopted an identical SRY standard in March 2026, itself aligned with a Trump administration executive order on women’s sports, and World Athletics and World Boxing had already made similar moves in 2025. The WTA’s policy arrived roughly four months after the IOC’s.
The screening is a one-time cheek swab, saliva sample, or blood draw — it never needs repeating, since genetics don’t change. A negative result makes a player immediately eligible to compete in the women’s category. A positive result triggers a further medical assessment: a player is ineligible for the women’s category unless she demonstrates Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or another recognized Difference of Sexual Development, to the satisfaction of WTA medical staff. The WTA covers the cost of testing. Refusing to test triggers disciplinary action and ineligibility.
For the players themselves, the rollout has looked more like a compliance briefing than a medical procedure. “We had to watch a video and do a whole thing to kind of, like a rollout of the education,” Pegula told Front Office Sports, describing how the tour introduced the policy to players before testing actually began at tournaments.
Pegula had flagged the coming testing days before it started. Speaking to reporters in Canada at the Canadian Open on August 6, 2026, she said she believed testing would begin in Cincinnati. When it did, her read on the reaction was measured rather than alarmed: “It definitely wasn’t something that was kind of brought all on us out of nowhere here in Cincinnati,” she said. “My opinion is I think the WTA just wanted to update their policy based on what they have seen from other sporting organizations. So far, at least from my point of view, I don’t really have any pushback on it.”
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka was the most emphatic voice in support. “I think it’s really important to keep the fairness in our tour,” she said. “If they want to test us all, I’m happy to do that, it’s pretty fair.” She framed the underlying rationale in blunter terms: “It’s obviously, biologically, the men are way stronger than women.”
“If they want to test us all, I'm happy to do that, it's pretty fair.”
Aryna Sabalenka, WTA World No. 1
Two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff backed the fairness goal but cautioned against turning the policy into a source of hostility. “I definitely support the trans community, but I also support the need of creating fairness in sport too,” she said, adding that the quiet rollout had left many players in the dark: “A lot of them didn’t find out until the press release.” World No. 2 Elena Rybakina was more neutral: “I don’t know what to comment. If we got to do it, we will do it.”
WTA legend Martina Navratilova voiced her support as well, in a post widely reported by SPORTbible and other outlets: “WTA supports all women. As in females. There is no such thing as an invasive transphobic test — just a once-in-a-lifetime cheek swab — takes all of three seconds.” She clarified separately that she “played no part” in drafting the policy.
The WTA’s new SRY standard is not the sport’s only eligibility rulebook, and the two don’t match. The International Tennis Federation’s own Gender Eligibility Policy, last updated December 23, 2024, still uses the older testosterone-threshold model — the 2.5 nmol/L cutoff — for ITF and World Tennis events. That is a real divergence in governance: a player’s eligibility could, in principle, turn on which body is running the event she enters, since the WTA tour and ITF-sanctioned events now operate under different standards for the same question.
The policy’s chain of authorship is murky. Valerie Camillo has served as WTA Chair since November 17, 2025. But Portia Archer, who became WTA CEO in July 2024, resigned effective April 20, 2026 — nearly three months before the policy was posted on July 19. No successor CEO had been publicly named as of this story’s publication, meaning the tour posted its most consequential eligibility change in years without a chief executive in place to explain it. The WTA declined to comment when Front Office Sports contacted the tour directly for its August 12 story on Pegula’s confirmation.
The WTA quietly adopted a one-time SRY gene test for every player on tour, posted it with no press release on July 19, 2026, and put it into effect two days later across all four Grand Slams. Jessica Pegula confirmed testing actually began at the Cincinnati Open in August, describing the process as simple and low-friction. Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, and Martina Navratilova have all voiced support, with Gauff the lone voice cautioning that many players learned about the change from the press, not the tour. The policy leaves the WTA out of step with the ITF, which still runs its own events on the older testosterone-threshold standard — a governance gap the WTA has not addressed publicly.
