Julie Tetart's Explosive Comeback in French Basketball
Julie Tetart is putting up numbers that belong on a video game screen, not a second-division box score.
Yet for all the noise swirling around her name online, the WNBA is not what drives her days right now. The 34-year-old, who stepped away from basketball in 2021 to transition from a man to a woman and returned in 2024, has a more immediate battle on her hands: dragging Monaco Basket Association into the French playoffs and chasing a long-shot dream with the national team.
Viral stats, real-life perspective
Tetart’s comeback has been nothing short of explosive. In France’s second division, she is averaging 21.2 points and a monstrous 20.2 rebounds per game for Monaco. Those are playground numbers, the kind that make clips go viral and algorithms go wild.
They did exactly that. Within weeks, highlights and stat lines bounced around social media, and with them came a familiar leap: from “who is this?” to “when is she going to the WNBA?”
The reality is far less breathless.
Tetart has been honest about it. Playing in the United States would be “a dream,” she has admitted, but she also points straight at the obstacles: her age, 34, and the level of competition across the Atlantic. There is no official WNBA interest, no franchise circling, no paperwork confirmed despite online claims. At this stage, the rumors live online, not in any front office.
Eyes on France, not America
Ask Tetart what she’s actually thinking about, and the answer sits a lot closer to home.
Monaco are in a fight just to reach the postseason. Every game matters. Every rebound, every put-back, every possession is about staying in the hunt in France’s second tier. That is where her focus lies, not on hypothetical flights to Chicago, Las Vegas, or New York.
In a recent interview with French media, the conversation turned to the next logical step: the elite division of women’s basketball in France and the possibility of a call-up to the national team. That, not the WNBA, is the ladder she’s staring up at.
“It would already be huge for me,” she said of breaking into the top flight and the national setup. Then came the realism that has marked her whole comeback. She knows there are “many more young people, stronger than me.” She is not selling a fantasy. She is measuring herself against a deep pool of talent and acknowledging the gap.
A dream blocked on multiple fronts
For now, the odds of Tetart playing in the WNBA remain extremely slim.
Beyond age and competition level, there is another layer of uncertainty. No WNBA franchise has publicly expressed interest. The league itself has yet to set out a clear, public stance on gender in a case like Tetart’s, leaving any potential move to the U.S. floating in a grey area.
So the speculation keeps running, while the facts stay stubbornly still. There is no draft declaration confirmed, no tryout scheduled, no contract offer whispered about by credible sources. Just a player dominating her league, and an online world racing several steps ahead.
The story that matters now
Strip away the noise and what remains is compelling enough on its own.
A player who left the sport to transition, returned as Monaco’s first openly trans athlete, and is now tearing up the second division with 21.2 points and 20.2 rebounds a night. A veteran who calls the WNBA a dream but spends her days chasing something closer, and arguably just as meaningful: promotion, a shot at the French elite, and maybe, if everything breaks right, the national team jersey she calls “huge.”
The WNBA conversation may never move beyond rumor. The French title race and the national team question will be settled on court.
That is where Julie Tetart is, and where her story will be written next.
