Ukrainian Tennis Star Elina Svitolina Faces Death Threats Online

Online abuse has become a distressing reality for female tennis players, with Ukrainian athlete Elina Svitolina recently receiving death threats following her quarterfinal loss at the National Bank Open in Montreal. As the rage of bettors spills over into harassment, Svitolina’s experience highlights a troubling trend in the sport.

The tournament in Canada has seen a rise in attention, particularly with the emergence of Victoria Mboko, an 18-year-old Canadian star preparing for the women’s final. Yet, for Svitolina, the aftermath of her defeat against Naomi Osaka was marred by a torrent of hateful messages, including threats to her life and derogatory comments targeting her husband, Gael Monfils, a French player of Black descent.

Svitolina responded to the vitriol with a powerful message on social media, stating, “To all the bettors: I’m a mum before I’m an athlete. The way you talk to women— to mothers— is SHAMEFUL. If your mothers saw your messages, they’d be disgusted.”

Other players have expressed similar distress regarding online threats. American player Coco Gauff, who lost to Mboko in the quarterfinals, shared her own experience with intimidation. “After I lost, I got like murder threats, I got told they were going to find my mom and stuff,” Gauff told the Associated Press. While she once took such threats seriously, she now views them with less weight, urging social media platforms to improve their filtering of abusive content. “TikTok does a great job of blocking, deleting people and deleting pages as soon as something hurtful is commented, but I don’t think Instagram and X do the same,” she noted.

Online abuse in tennis is not a new phenomenon. Taylor Townsend, who recently finished as the runner-up in women’s doubles with Zhang Shuai, acknowledged the issue, stating, “It sucks, but it’s also part of the world that we live in.” She emphasized that many abusers hide behind screens, making it an unfortunate aspect of being a public figure in sports.

Earlier this year, British player Katie Boulter revealed her own harrowing experiences, receiving threats during the French Open. Boulter described messages that were not only aggressive but also directly targeted her family. “Hope you get cancer,” read one message, while another threatened her grandmother. Boulter attributed much of the abuse to individuals placing bets on matches.

A report by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) underscores the scale of this issue. In 2024, they recorded over 8,000 abusive comments aimed at 458 players. Notably, 40 percent of the abuse originated from “angry gamblers,” with a small number of accounts responsible for a significant portion of the harassment.

Jonathan Hirshler, CEO of the Signify Group, which provided data for the report, explained the implications. “This unique dataset illustrates that a relatively small number of accounts are responsible for a significant proportion of prolific abuse and trolling,” he stated. The WTA and ITF have since called on the betting industry to take action against these threats.

In response to the escalating issue, Signify has acted against some of the most serious offenders, escalating concerns about 15 accounts to law enforcement agencies, including three to the FBI. Their goal is to prevent these individuals from gaining access to major tennis events.

Additionally, in 2024, Sportradar, a company closely connected with betting operators, introduced Safe Sport, a service designed to combat online abuse targeting athletes. This initiative employs artificial intelligence moderation and is available to the top 250 ATP singles players and the top 50 doubles players on an opt-in basis.

The alarming trend of online abuse in tennis has provoked a call to action from various stakeholders within the sport. As players like Svitolina, Mboko, and Gauff continue to rise through the ranks, the tennis community is increasingly aware of the need to protect its athletes from the toxicity that can overshadow their achievements.