“Every single athlete, I would say.”
The main driver behind this abuse has been laid bare: gambling.
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“Hope you get cancer,” said one message. Another promised to buy a coffin for her entire family.
“I don’t think it’s something that I would ever say to my worst enemy. It’s just an awful, awful thing to say to anyone. It’s horrible.”
“I think it’s so easy to spread online hate,” says Jack Draper, the British men’s No 1, who avoids most of the abuse by shunning social media altogether.
“I take comfort that in knowing whoever’s doing that probably sat on their Mum’s couch, nailing a bag of Quavers with their pants on [while writing the abuse].”
“It’s so important for young girls growing up, not just in sport, to not be so focused on social media and not care what people think.”
Signify’s analysis shows that 40 per cent of all detected abuse last year came from angry gamblers, but that jumps to 77 per cent when you look exclusively at direct abuse, like private messages.
Boulter is determined not to let online abuse ruin her relationship with fans (Photo: Reuters)
After a spate of match-fixing incidents in 2018, a ban was instituted on the ATP Tour, forbidding tournaments from signing sponsorship deals with gambling firms. However, the damage done by the Covid pandemic in 2020 forced them to lift it for smaller 250 and 500 tournaments.
When there wasn’t any because of Covid, some bookmakers put up hundreds of thousands of pounds in prize money to make sure low-level professional tennis continued without fans paying for tickets or big names travelling around the world.
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And while tennis betting only represents around five per cent of the industry, it is a good hit rate: tennis fans are more likely than any other mainstream sports fan, horse racing aside, to spend more than £100 a month on betting.
Tennis believes it has done all it can, and now needs more help from social media companies and more specifically betting operators. Last year, 39 account holders were shared with the betting industry and tennis authorities; where possible, they were banned from venues and tickets were even rescinded. The same chain of communication ensured that Emma Raducanu’s stalker in Dubai was removed from any Wimbledon ticket ballot.
“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,” says Jessica Pegula, the highest-ranked player on the WTA Players’ Council.
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