Former world quantity eight Daria Kasatkina says the abuse acquired by gamers on social media is “utterly uncontrolled”.
The 26-year-old Russian shared screengrabs of threatening messages despatched to her after she reached the WTA Elite Trophy semi-finals in Zhuhai.
One mentioned she “must be useless”, with one other blaming her for shedding a guess.
Kasatkina’s experiences are yet one more instance of the web abuse which continues to be directed at gamers.
It’s a long-standing drawback which has affected tennis, the place gamers report they’re usually focused by gamblers, and different sports activities.
In Could, American Taylor Townsend shared a screenshot of the loss of life menace and racist abuse she acquired in an e-mail after shedding on the Italian Open.
At this yr’s French Open, organisers supplied gamers on the event synthetic intelligence-protection from social media abuse.
The Bodyguard expertise aimed to filter out abusive feedback on Fb, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Discord.
Poland’s four-time main winner Iga Swiatek, who signed up to make use of the initiative, mentioned it made “no sense to learn” feedback as a result of they led to having “unfavorable emotions and ideas”.
Social media platforms have mentioned they’re dedicated to tackling abuse, with Instagram introducing a instrument in 2021 to allow customers to routinely filter out abusive messages from these they don’t observe on the platform.
Earlier this yr, a WTA spokesperson mentioned the governing physique works with a threat evaluation and administration firm to close down social media accounts when warranted.
“Participant security is the WTA’s primary precedence,” the spokesperson added.
“The WTA has been working for a number of years to teach and counsel gamers on this difficulty, because the variety of gamers affected continues to extend and it is an vital difficulty we take very severely.”