Why online abuse of tennis players led to law enforcement investigations in 2024

New York Times

5 hours ago

Tennis players last year received abuse so threatening that 15 cases were escalated to law enforcement agencies, according to a joint report released Tuesday by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and International Tennis Federation (ITF).
The report, which covers the 2024 season, lays bare the scale of abuse directed at players on social media. It also offers a reminder that the detected abuse only scratches the surface.
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Between January to December 2024, an artificial intelligence threat analysis system analyzed 1.6 million posts and comments. It verified around 8,000 posts/comments sent from 4,200 accounts as abusive, violent or threatening. 8,000 out of 1.6 million is just 0.5 percent, underlining the true scale of the problem.
The report identified 458 players as targeted with direct abuse or threats, with five players receiving 26 percent of the posts classified as abusive. 97 social media accounts were responsible for 23 percent of all detected abuse.
According to the data analysis, angry gamblers sent 40 percent of all detected abuse across the year. Of the 10 most prolific accounts, responsible for 12 percent of all abuse detected, nine have either been suspended or deleted their post(s), or had them removed by the relevant platform. One account sent 263 abusive messages in 2024, but has not posted any abusive content in 2025 to date.
Of the 15 incidents reported to law enforcement agencies, four took place at the Grand Slams, one at the Olympics, and the other 10 were across tour events. Three were submitted to the FBI, with 12 investigated by other national law enforcement bodies. They led to individuals being banned from venues and having tickets rescinded.
Signify Group's Threat Matrix service, which went live in January 2024, is designed to help protect players by detecting and filtering out abusive messages through a combination of AI and human analysts. All players competing in WTA Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour events (and WTA and ITF players competing in the four Grand Slams) are automatically covered by the service.
But targeted abuse is just the tip of the iceberg. During last month's French Open, Jessica Pegula, the world No. 3, said that abuse always finds a way to enter her timeline, even if not directed at her.
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'These bettors are insane and delusional,' Pegula wrote in the wake of her shock fourth-round defeat to French qualifier Loïs Boisson.
'I don't allow DMs, and try to remember when to shut my comments off during tournament weeks … This stuff has never really bothered me much, but does any other sport deal with this to our level? I'd love to know because it seems to be predominantly tennis? It's so disturbing.
'Every person on tour deals with it. It's so bad. Those are just really small snippets. I get told my family should get cancer and die from people on here on a regular basis. Absolutely crazy.'
Bettors and angry fans will name players in abusive comments after a loss, even if they do not message or tag them on social media when doing so. The normalization of this kind of abuse has become a major issue for the sport, and is the natural next step for people who have been blocked or can't message the targets of their abuse directly.
The Athletic has contacted the WTA and ITF for clarity on what the report classifies as targeted hate. The ITF, the WTA and its men's counterpart, the ATP, share match data with providers linked to sports betting.
Pegula, who sits on the WTA Players' Council, said Tuesday: 'Online abuse is unacceptable, and something that no player should have to endure. I welcome the work that the WTA and ITF are doing with Threat Matrix to identify and take action against the abusers, whose behavior is so often linked to gambling.
'But it's not enough on its own. It's time for the gambling industry and social media companies to tackle the problem at its source and act to protect everyone facing these threats.'
Caroline Garcia, the French former world No. 4 who will retire later this year, opened up on the damaging effects of social media abuse at the U.S. Open last August. She wrote on Instagram that 'unhealthy betting' accounted for most of the abuse, and emphasized how damaging it was to players who were already 'emotionally destroyed' after a defeat.
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'If someone decided to say these things to me in public, he could have legal issues. So why online we are free to do anything? Shouldn't we reconsider anonymity online?' Garcia wrote.
A Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson told BBC Sport that the organization does 'not tolerate abuse on social media, which has no place in betting or sport'. The Athletic has contacted the organization for comment, as well as Meta, the company which owns social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Jonathan Hirshler, the chief executive of Signify Group, which developed the Threat Matrix service, said that the fact that a lot of the abuse came from a small number of accounts 'means that we are able to be even more focused working with the platforms to ensure successful take down, support the tennis bodies to drive law enforcement intervention for the most egregious accounts and work with event security teams to ensure prolific abusers are unable to attend tournaments.'
The threat of online abuse can also tip into real-world threats. At the French Open, Denmark's Clara Tauson and Jakub Menšík of the Czech Republic both confronted bettors who abused them from the stands. And in March, at a practice session during the Miami Open, world No. 8 Iga Świątek was confronted by someone who has regularly abused her online. The tournament gave Świątek additional security after the incident, which a representative for the five-time Grand Slam champion described to The Athletic as 'a direct transition from verbal aggression online to harassment in the real world.'
It's not clear whether the tweets from the man who confronted Świątek would have counted as targeted abuse, as some did not tag her directly.
The report outlines a spike in abuse from gamblers during Grand Slams. As Wimbledon gets under way on Mon. June 30, players will again face abuse and harassment from people gambling on their matches.