Host Demetra Giannakopoulos speaks with Karolina Czyż from Poland who is on a mission to encourage Polish lesbians to play more tennis and enter tournaments in Poland and through Europe and how through tennis you can meet the love of your life.

Gaybledon Championship Tour

“morewomen@GLTAtournaments”

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Host: Demetra Giannakopoulos (DG):   We have a very special guest on Hit Me Up! We have an international guest and her name is Karolina Czyż and Karolina is from Poland. Absolutely loves her tennis. Karolina welcome to Hit me Up on Joy 94.9.

Guest:   Karolina Czyż (KC): Hello. Hello, everybody. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, my name is Karolina Czyż and I live in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. I was born here in 1977. I was attending, tennis academy, as a kid being eight and 13 years old, and then stopped playing and returned to tennis in 2021. So having 44 years.

So I had, around 30 years of break, and I was studying psychology. But I work, for a corporation in financial reporting.

DG:   Why we’re talking to you is because you are really getting involved in encouraging people to take part in the GLTA tour. So, what tournaments have you played in the GLTA tour?

KC:   I played already, ten GLTA tournaments. My first one, was in Poland in June 2023. It was in Poznan Summer vibes. That’s the name of the tournament. AND last one, was in August this year in Zurich in Switzerland. And on my first, tournament in Poznan, I played together with guys because there were not enough woman to create a separate woman draws.

And I came there with my rainbow tennis friends from my hometown Warsaw. And she took her wife and a dog, and I took my girlfriend, and we all came very curious to check how is it to play on the biggest rainbow tour in the world with all these guys from abroad? Is it all worth so much money to pay?

And turns out the atmosphere was great. Guys were very welcoming. It was super funny. And finally, I could feel it’s my kind of space where I can fully relax and meet others from my favourite rainbow and tennis bubbles. And it was really worth every dollar spent there. I admit, that before, I never paid so much for any tennis tournament.

As usually I played only on our tournaments in my hometown, which, costs, like, 1 or 2 [word]. So that was, something a big leap for me. It was really great.

DG:   Tell us which tournaments you’ve play because you’ve played quite a lot of tournaments.

KC:   Yeah. So all of them were, were in Europe because of the costs. And I’ve chosen the ones, where I could play in separate woman draws. Okay. Because we have tournaments, like, almost every weekend, I think. But, not all of them offer separate draws for woman. Last year, in 2023, when I started with GLTA, there were three tournaments, two of them in Poland, because I decided I would play in every tournament in Poland.

That was Poznan Summer Vibes and in Katowice.

DG:   That’s a great name for a tournament, summer vibes. So in Australia we’re just coming into summer and we’re starting to feel the summer vibes.

KC:   Yeah. And I can tell you that guys, created even a song. Summer Vibes. So we, had, our own, anthem for, for this particular tournament because of artificial intelligence. Now you can just ask it to create a song, you know, from over give, tennis, LGBT, summer vibes and so on. So we had this song playing all the time during the tournament.

It was really nice. Guys are very creative.

 

DG:   Oh, that is fantastic, I love it.

 

KC:   And, first tournament, last,