ATP, WTA eye outside help for tennis players harassed online
london — Madison Keys was the US Open runner-up last year and a French Open semifinalist last month, is considered a contender at Wimbledon right now — and, still, total strangers insult her, sometimes with menacing or obscene language, on a regular basis via social media.
“Try to find another job,” read one message sent to the American via Twitter after she lost at the Australian Open. Another called her “the most overrated player in all of tennis.” Those are just a couple of examples that happen to be suitable for print. Often, as Keys says, “It’s really disgusting, horrible things.”
She is hardly alone. Professional tennis players of every sort — women and men, highly ranked and otherwise, from countries all around the globe — scan their cell phones after matches at Wimbledon and other tournaments and are greeted by online harassment. Personal insults.
Threats against family members. And frequently, players say, complaints from disgruntled gamblers. To help deal with this phenomenon, the ATP set up a partnership this year with a company that deals with risk assessment and management, and the WTA is close to finalising a deal with the same group, Theseus, The Associated Press has learned.
“Today, I just looked briefly; I had two or three messages, like, ‘How can you lose to someone ranked lower than you?’ ‘You should die.’ ‘Quit tennis.’ Stuff like that,” Peter Polansky, a Canadian ranked 110th, said after his firstround exit at the All England Club on Monday. “It’s guys who bet money on you and lost . ... Just the things they say are, like, ‘Wow.’ It’s tough to step in and stop all that. I don’t think it’s preventable.”
Kevin Anderson, the South African who lost to Rafael Nadal in last year’s US Open final, said: “Every player experiences it, no matter who you are. I try to stay away from it. I know it’s out there.”
Now players can alert Londonbased Theseus, which also works with athletes in other sports and entertainment figures, to troubling messages and be told whether the item simply can be ignored or is serious enough to warrant alerting law enforcement. Neither the ATP nor Theseus would disclose how many tennis players have taken advantage of the new relationship or how often police or other authorities have been contacted.
“This is an issue that isn’t going to go away,” ATP spokesman Simon Higson wrote in an email, “and it is important that our players are able to understand what they are receiving, why, how to respond and what actions they are advised to take.”
The WTA’s senior director for athlete assistance, Kathy Martin, said the women’s tour has been working for years to educate and counsel players on the issue.
Stalking and player safety are real concerns in a sport shaken by the stabbing of International Tennis Hall of Famer Monica Seles during a tournament 25 years ago.
Some, such as Frances Tiafoe, an American ranked 52nd, try to ignore it all. “Not to sound cocky or anything, but they’d rather be me,” Tiafoe said of those who place wagers on him and then insult him when he loses. —