Daria Kasatkina came out as gay publicly last month in an interview, and she is pleased with the positive reaction of fans and how it has helped others.
Kasatkina is one of the biggest fighters on the WTA Tour. She has won respect worldwide for maximizing her ability to achieve great results, such as being a semifinalist at this year's French Open.
The 25-year-old proved she is not just brave on the court last month after announcing she was gay, something that attracted the attention of millions of people worldwide.
Homosexuality is not viewed positively by the Russian government. That meant Kasatkina, born in Russia, may have hesitated to speak out and potentially put herself in danger.
The French Open semifinalist put those concerns to one side by announcing she was gay. Unfortunately, that news led to some hateful trolls on social media making unpleasant remarks about Kasatkina.
However, those haters were outnumbered by the number who supported Kasatkina, and she spoke about how happy she was to hear such positive things, including from people in Russia.
"I don't know how the social media filter works, but I've just heard very good things. Not just from the west but also people from my country. I'm really happy about it. As I saw, it was not just a good thing for me, also it helped other people. That's great and I feel great. I feel happy about it and about myself and that's most important."
Kasatkina also said she felt freer and happier since being open about her sexual orientation. That feeling is a reward for being brave enough to speak about the issue publicly, helping many others in the process.
"Yeah, I feel more free and happy. I think I made the right step. With the situation in the world, all this stuff that is tough, when if not now? Let's put everything into the same pool."