NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Garcia, a semi-finalist at the US Open two years agodrew attention on Wednesday to the pervasive problem of Cyberbullying in tennisespecially from people who bet on matches after their defeat in the first round of the Grand Slam tournament.
Other players echoed Garcia’s complaint, including defending champion Coco Gauff, who said: “You can be having a good day and then someone literally tells you, ‘Oh, go kill yourself.’ And you’re like, ‘Okay, thanks.'”
Garcia, a 30-year-old Frenchman who is already ranked fourth, was seeded 28th. in Flushing Meadows but was eliminated by Renata Zarazúa 6-1, 6-4 on Tuesday. Zarazúa is ranked 92nd in the world and is making her debut at the US Open.
“You may think it doesn’t hurt us. But it does. We are human.” Garcia wrote on social media“And sometimes when we receive (these) messages, we are already emotionally devastated after a serious loss. And they can be damaging. Many before me have raised the issue. And yet no progress has been made.”
Garcia gave only “a few” examples of the hundreds of messages she has received after losing games. One of those messages told her to consider suicide and another said, “I hope your mother dies soon.”
“At the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl who works really hard and tries her best. I have the tools and I’ve done something to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not OK,” Garcia wrote. “It really worries me when I think about the young players who have to go through this. People who aren’t fully developed as human beings yet and who could really be affected by this hate.”
As other players have mentioned in the past, she talked about how she was verbally attacked by players who were upset about losing their money.
“Tournaments and sports continue to partner with betting companies that continue to lure new people into unhealthy bets,” Garcia said. “The days of cigarette brands sponsoring sports are long gone. And yet here we are supporting betting companies that are actively destroying some people’s lives.”
This type of Harassment via social media is of course nothing new, and in tennis it is also nothing new.
“You hear a lot of nasty things and people talk about your appearance, your family’s appearance and all these things,” Gauff said. “When you’re already struggling with your own mental health issues and then you have people digging deeper, it’s hard.”
Frances Tiafoe, a semi-finalist in New York 2022, said: “People are saying crazy things. It’s just crazy.”
“I try not to look at the comments,” said 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, mentioning that she will ask her PR person to scroll through and let her know if there are any positive comments. “Because there will always be a negative comment and I learned that the hard way.”
Players have denounced this in the past and Grand Slam tournaments have tried to prevent the news from reaching the athletes.
The French Open partnered in 2022 with a company that uses artificial intelligence to filter players’ social media accounts, and the groups that run the US Open, Wimbledon, the women’s tour and the lower-tier ITF tour announced in December that they would launch a service to monitor X, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok for “offensive and threatening content.”
“Many people before me have raised the issue,” Garcia said. “And yet no progress has been made. Social media platforms are not preventing it, even though AI is very advanced.”
She concluded her message by urging all readers: “The next time you see a post from an athlete, singer, or any other person who has failed or lost, remember that they, too, are human beings trying their best in life. Be kind. Give love. Enjoy life.”
___
AP Tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
